Apple, Arm & Intel – Eyebrow raiser.

Apple potentially does some real damage.

• With its new Macs, Apple has made some very bold claims for the performance and power efficiency of its new M1 chip but if they hold close to true then Intel and even AMD have some soul searching to do.
• Apple released three new Macs, a MacBook Air, a MacBook Pro and a Mac Mini at the heart of which lies the new M1 chip that Apple has specifically designed for its computers.
• The M1 is based on Arm’s intellectual property but the design and implementation have been completely carried out by Apple
• Apple (like Qualcomm, Samsung and several others) has what is known as an architecture licence from Arm which means that it can adapt the Arm IP in any way that works best for its products.
• Over the last 5 or 6 years, Apple has clearly demonstrated that when it comes to applications processors for mobile devices, it one of the best in the industry.
• It is trying to do the same in chips that process the radio communications but at the moment that crown remains firmly with Qualcomm and MediaTek.
• The heart of the M1 is based on Arm’s big.LITTLE architecture where there are 4 compute cores designed for high performance and 4 compute cores designed for power efficiency with a performance controller that distributes the tasks between the different cores.
• This is what enables high performance and power efficiency in the same package and the claims that Apple is making are startling.
• Apple is claiming that the M1 gets 2x the performance of the latest PC laptop chip at 10 Watts and that the M1 can deliver the peak performance of the PC laptop chip at just ¼ of the power consumption.
• Apple does not say which PC laptop chip it is comparing itself against but based on its commentary and website I would estimate that this is a 14nm Intel i7.
• This translated into some big numbers being put up for the Macs themselves with Apple claiming that its MacBook Pro would be 2.8x faster than their predecessors for the CPU and 5x faster when it comes to graphics.
• These comparisons are detailed as follows:
  • First, CPU: The 2.8x improvement is over a 13” MacBook Pro with the Intel Core™ i7-8557U Processor which is based on a 14nm process and has a clock speed of 1.7Ghz.
  • Second, GPU: The 5x improvement is over the Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645 which are onboard the i7 processor detailed above.
  • Third, battery life: Apple is claiming up to 20 hours of battery life for its MacBook Pro which is a massive improvement of 11 hours for its predecessor.
  • This is tested under optimal conditions using just video playback, but it is a very impressive improvement if verified.
• The M1 is equivalent to the i7 processor in that it, too uses onboard graphics but there are some significant differences that are likely to account for the difference.
  • First and foremost, semiconductor process: The M1 chip is made on TSMC’s 5nm process while the Intel chip that it is compared to is made on Intel’s 14nm process.
  • The 14nm process is 3 generations behind the 5nm process and I suspect that the lion’s share of the performance and the power-saving advantage is due to this.
  • This means that when others produce x86 CPUs at 5nm, a large part of this advantage may well disappear.
  • Second, Arm: The Arm processor is very efficient by design compared to x86 and longer battery life in similar devices compared to x86 is not uncommon.
  • Third, Integrated SoC: The M1 is one of the most integrated system-on-chips I have seen, as, in addition to onboard graphics, it also has the DRAM onboard.
  • This means that communication between the modules is faster and more power-efficient.
  • It also has the added disadvantage in that post-purchase upgrades are no longer possible meaning that if one wants more memory, one has to pay Apple’s prices and make this decision at the point of purchase.
  • Fourth, Software integration: By designing the whole system from top to bottom Apple can ensure that the M1 is optimised to run its macOS and vice versa.
  • This confers a significant advantage when it comes to performance and power consumption and Apple has historically done a very good job at making the most of this.
• The big downside to all of this is that not all of the old Mac software will run optimally on the new M1 chip until the developer recompiles its app for the new processor design.
• Apple is providing emulators and has made big claims about their performance but these have never produced very good results historically and I suspect that this will be a big drawback of the new machines.
• However, this is the 3^rd time Apple has made this move and it managed pretty well before and there is no reason to think that it won’t again.
• The bottom line is that I am impressed with what Apple has announced.
• I was expecting it to go for long battery life at an equivalent level of performance and the fact that it is able to go for both performance and battery is a testament to just how good a chip designer Apple has become.
• All of this depends on the benchmark tests when the devices reach the hands of the 3^rd party testers and reviewers, but Apple’s has a reasonably good history of matching its claims.
• An awful lot also hinges on how well the old Intel software runs on these devices and what the hit to battery life is like as a result when the emulator is running.
• Hence, I am holding onto to my final judgement, but from what it launched yesterday, there is a lot here for Intel and even AMD to worry about.
• This the first time that Apple has surprised me in a while, but I still find the valuation unattractive.
• Good company, bad stock.