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It is time for both Qualcomm and Apple to bury the hatchet. It is in the best interests of all their customers. Please!!

I'll just add that it would be nice to see Qualcomm, Apple and Samsung all bury the hatchet. They all have more to gain by working together to combat patent trolls than fighting with each other.
 
The average consumer will never face the issue. It's tuned more for shared servers, since they rely on malicious code already being on a system.
That's not the reason. Meltdown and Spectre can attack any application on the same _computer_. Usually malware can only attack applications _of the some user_. But if you run MacOS, Windows, Linux as a single user on your consumer computer then _any_ malware can attack everything on that computer - because there's only one user. Meltdown and Spectre don't gain anything in addition to the usual malware. On a server, running software of a dozen different users, it's different.
 
LOL. They’ve been saying that since at least 1992, when I started designing high-end CPUs. The end of the road keeps getting delayed, thanks to things like strained silicon, SOI, copper wiring, finfets, DFM, packaging improvements, MCMs, etc. There are many more cards left to be played - diagonal wires, HBTs/CML, III-V, etc.

III-V means we're past Silicon. I wonder if we're ever going to bother with that though, or if graphene is going to beat it to viability.
 
Apple makes this for fun. Ironically Apple!
Do you really think that? Or is this a joke?
There are mitigations against Meltdown and Spectre. These mitigations can be implemented, whether the processor is actually vulnerable or not. And with a billion iPhones in users' hands, it would be absolutely incompetent and negligent _not_ to implement them.
 
There are mitigations against Meltdown and Spectre. These mitigations can be implemented, whether the processor is actually vulnerable or not. And with a billion iPhones in users' hands, it would be absolutely incompetent and negligent _not_ to implement them.
If it's proven not to be vulnerable to something, implementing a mitigation could effectively be gimping.
 
Their stock hasn't been sliding. It went down for one day after Meltdown was presented, before everyone realized 1. competitors also have bugs and 2. this forces people to buy new CPUs anyway. Since then it's been going up. It's much higher now than at the end of January.

Let them have another event like this and it’s discovered they covered it up. It will slide.
 
Meltdown was one bug that was easy for Intel to fix, and they already fixed it (and btw it affected ARM too).
The Windows fix was broken. Microsoft repaired it a few days ago with the April update.

It apparently only affected one ARM core in development.
 
Aerosol is better. ;-)
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Since when? What console maker has updated their CPU twice in two years?

I was an AMD cpu designer for 9+ years. You really don’t want to go there.
can you give us some insight as to what it was like designing chips for AMD? They were super cool in the late 90s...
 
Screen Shot 2018-05-07 at 4.17.41 PM.png

Whoa, give that person a raise for this insightful knowledge! Then fire them for the typography.
 
The Windows fix was broken. Microsoft repaired it a few days ago with the April update.

It apparently only affected one ARM core in development.
The real fix (for Meltdown) is hardware, the next gen CPUs, which Intel and other chipmakers are responsible for. There are OS-level workarounds, but they degrade the performance.
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Remember Pentium 4?
Yes, I know. Jobs complained about that too. It was a long time ago, though.
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That’s not what I said. That’s different processors in the same generation - just diffferent SoCs. Big difference between that and what Apple needs to provide for its lineup and refresh on a regular basis.
Nah, Apple can do fine with that because they never refresh their lineup anyway, lol
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So computers made for the next few years will have the Meltdown and Spectre issue?
I'm not sure because I only know this stuff at a theoretical level, but I think yes... Last time I checked, the OS was handling that by limiting branch prediction or something related in a way that causes a slowdown.

The original Spectre attack I read about worked by abusing the branch prediction. Do an illegal memory access after a branch ("if" statement) that doesn't get taken, and the CPU would still execute those instructions before it realized the branch wasn't taken. The program wouldn't see the memory's value, but the machine's memory cache would still be affected in a way the program could use to determine the value of the illegally accessed mem address.
 
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"These vulnerabilities are expected to affect ARM and AMD as well, as at least one of the original Spectre and Meltdown exploits did, but Intel arguably faces the most scrutiny given its high profile position of market leadership"

Can we put this down to the programmable microcode ? which is why we see this more on Intel than others?

Although software patches this in software, that doesn't solved the issue. it just suppresses it. (as long as updates keep coming out). I would call that a 'short term fix'

Intel, get your act together. I once was an Intel-on-MacOS fan, but nowadays not so sure anymore. Apple forging ahead with its own ARM CPU's is making more and more sense.

I'm not sure if you can put the slowdown on chips coming out as "always" the hold up for later Mac model delays.... Allot of this has also been in the supply chain elsewhere with Apple. But Mac specific? I still don't see you could put it down to one single point.
 
This article probably solidifies why Apple will start transitioning its desktop line to ARM. The MacBook's will be a good start, by 2023, we can likely see our first OctoCore A17 MacBook Pro.
 
Will the U.S government allow a Chinese company like SMIC takeover Intel and straighten things out? After all, if anyone, the Chinese know manufacturing...
 
That's not the reason. Meltdown and Spectre can attack any application on the same _computer_. Usually malware can only attack applications _of the some user_. But if you run MacOS, Windows, Linux as a single user on your consumer computer then _any_ malware can attack everything on that computer - because there's only one user. Meltdown and Spectre don't gain anything in addition to the usual malware. On a server, running software of a dozen different users, it's different.

The point is, if you have malware running on your computer, then there are already other vectors that the malware can exploit, since it's most likely to be installed as a root user with full system access.

Only shared servers have to worry about the issue of malware by non-root users.
 
There are mitigations against Meltdown and Spectre. These mitigations can be implemented, whether the processor is actually vulnerable or not. And with a billion iPhones in users' hands, it would be absolutely incompetent and negligent _not_ to implement them.

Why patch a vulnerabilty that does not exist especially if the patch can lead to performance disadvantages?
Where is the meltdown patch for AMD? With your logic it should exist, even if AMD isn't affected to meltdown.

Meltdown can be fixed in software and doesn't need mitigations (although the fix can have disadvantages on performance, depending on the task). Spectre is another story.
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It is not clear that Meltdown actually affects shipped ARM chips.

Meltdown = Variant 3:

Variant 3:
Cortex-A75:

Variant 3a:
Cortex-A15
Cortex-A57
Cortex-A72

https://developer.arm.com/support/arm-security-updates/speculative-processor-vulnerability


The Apple CPUs Vulnerable To Meltdown / Spectre
Apple makes custom processors based on the ARM microarchitecture. They have not released specific information on which of their processors are affected by which exploit, but this is what we know so far.

Affected Variants : Apple only issued a general notice that their processors are affected by both Meltdown and Spectre, not the specific variants.
https://www.techarp.com/guides/complete-meltdown-spectre-cpu-list/4/
 
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Intel deserves this for the lies about spectre and meltdown. As I’ve said before I can’t wait to see intel stock slide more and more and hope they never recover financially
I am beyond excited that you have absolutely NO say so when it comes to this situation. No one benefits from a lack of completion. Especially as Intel is not the only one affected. ARM and AMD are affected as well.
 
Intel, get your act together. I once was an Intel-on-MacOS fan, but nowadays not so sure anymore. Apple forging ahead with its own ARM CPU's is making more and more sense.
For minimum spec laptops like the MacBook, sure. For higher-end machines, I see no reason. Wake me up when Apple or AMD can consistently make a faster processor. So far, it's never happened.
 
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