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Apple Started Developing A11 Bionic Chip When A8 Chip Was Released Three Years Ago
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Qualcomm is scratching their heads. How do we put Neural Engine in our Snapdragon 856 (random numbers).
If Apple users wouldn't perpetuate iPhone myths.....
https://www.cnet.com/news/7-ways-the-iphone-x-copies-android-phones/ lol
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/s forgot?
This article is just cancer. Most of the Android phones produce their so-called "First in tech" are half-baked. Look at that face unlock with a photo compared to the Neural Engine enabled face unlock. The difference is literally "light years".
Exactly. I work at large R&D company and since I've started at my current employer, 4 years ago, all I've done is work on one technology that we're still 3-4 years out from for mass production.
Also I think it's important that folks realize that other phone manufacturers are NOT Apple's competitors when it comes to this. There is only one, and it's Qualcomm. It's not like they slapped together their "neural network" chip either in the last year. BOTH companies have been working for years on these, so to say Apple is "ground breaking", I'm not so sure. I will give it to them that they do it a heck of a lot better.
Chip design arguably is the department where apple rocks most at the moment.
Would have liked it in my iPad Pro, but A10X already is incredibly strong and I'm looking forward to the capabilities of the new one.
Would have liked it in my iPad Pro, but A10X already is incredibly strong and I'm looking forward to the capabilities of the new one.
Nice comment. Instinctively I agree, but I'm not knowledgable enough to be able to be a creative thinker in these areas. What do you (and others in tech) think might lie ahead 3-6 yrs out, i.e. 1-2 cycles?
Apple is good at is choosing what new technology to work on, and using that technology developed in a product, as Apple designs their own chips it is easy for them to integrate hardware & software together. people agree that every company is spending billions in R&D.
Microsoft is spending $ on AR glasses, i think it is better to integrate this tech into phones, rather than having a new accessory.
I think it is not only the transportation of the wafers through the fab. The whole process of etching, diffusing and polishing the multitude of layers of a current chip (around 60 for 10/14nm) can take months from start to finish.
https://semiengineering.com/battling-fab-cycle-times/
Jesus Christ what a cancerous "Article".
1. No home button. Who the actual F said that iPhone X was the first ever phone to not feature a physical home button?? No one.
2. Bezel to bezel display....again, nobody is saying that Apple did it first even though they probably were the first to conceptualise the idea in the design studio.
3. Larger screen size....uhh what???
4. OLED display... so now iPhone can't have a different technology of display without being critiqued because certain Android phones had them before?
5. Wireless charging, again, so what? It's a technology which Apple have adopted...
6. Optical image stabilisation.... I'm done...
So much baseless hate towards the company who single handedly created a billion dollar industry back in 2007 with the iPhone. I think people ought to have a little more respect.
Having said that I also find it ironic how Android fanboys a.k.a Apple haters, love to criticise apple for including a feature or technology in their iPhone which has been used by a certain Android phone in the past, however small that feature or technology might have been, yet when Samsung released their first iPhone competitor in 2010 they literally copied the entire design of the iPhone. A complete screen with touch input with physical home button etc.
Absolutely right on it being Apple versus Qualcomm. Until Intel and AMD enter this race, those are the two chip players and unfortunately, only Apple can uses Apple's SoC so that leaves everyone else with Qualcomm.
LOLLLL. Says the guy who's been bashing Apple since he joined the forum over a year ago.
I bet that working for isn't easy at all but the job might have lots of benefits too.
I've never seen any speculation on what functions Apple builds into their chips. Since they are specifically designed to run software using Apple's compiler tech, do they build processing units that execute common algorithms specific to their software? Function-specific hardware, such as video encoders, destroy software-based equivalents, so I wonder what else Apple bakes in.
Credit where credit is due. Apple has done incredible things in their CPUs (they are, IMHO, indisputably the best team in the world right now), but single-ISA heterogenous processing of this sort is NOT something they invented. Academics proposed the idea around the turn of the century (in a variety of forms, some of which have not yet shipped), and I expect the Android crowd to be quick to remind you that ARM shipped their implementation of this idea (big.LITTLE), what, five(?) years ago.
Hell, I don't know why you think it's even new to Apple, since Apple shipped THEIR first implementation of the idea last year in the A10 Fusion.
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Don't mock what you don't understand. NPUs have been shipping for years (look up the company called Movidius),
and last month Huawei announced an NPU in the Kirin 970.
Apple is providing what their customers need by adding an NPU, but let's not pretend that this is an Apple innovation. As always, obsessing about "first" and "innovation" is the pastime of the ignorant; smart people obsess about "best" not about "first".
Yeah, I've been out since September 2009, and you're absolutely correct. Are we down that far now? I saw the TSMC article here and they're talking about 7nm. I guess the next thing we'll be doing is the angstrom thicknesses.
With automated FABs now, one would think that just having machine to machine automated placement would be the ideal, and pose less risk than hand carry, especially with 25lb FOUPs. I can only imagine how much 450mm wafers weigh. I was out when those started coming online.
This is why Apple is wanting to put in $3 Billion on Bain's bid for Toshiba's RAM division that's up for sale!!
To me, mobile chip design has become Apple's bread and butter. It's really ironic considering their storied history with chip providers
Seriously, they are killing it in this area, and now that they are expanding to other series (S and W), all to huge success, my perspective on Apple's future has never been more optimistic.
Where have you been?
Apple has been designing chips since the Front Side Bus Controller in the Apple G4 chips in tandem with Motorola & IBM circa PowerMac G4, PowerBook G4. This division has grown intensely at Apple. Looking to see just how much further they can go.
An aside to this ... I'm surprise the Board and Tim didn't factor in with Hon Hai/FoxConn and Trump for incentives to create jobs for a RAM and semiconductor fab in the USA? Maybe they did, and potentially maybe Apple will buy IBM's facility in Catskill, NY (where the G5's where made and refab that facility for something unique and intense). semiconductor fabs cost 100's of Billions and take years to get just 1 year advances against the competition so I'm doubtful.
Given all their efforts on vertical integration, I'm surprised that aren't putting more effort into developing their own display panels. They had quality issues with panels from various suppliers several times over the years, and when it comes to OLED panels, they are apparently still completely dependent on Samsung, which seems to be the main factor holding back the iPhone X at the moment.