Talk:Apple M1

Reconcile this with Apple's motion coprocessors
Apple now has two series of processors designated as "M" series: this one being the first of its desktop SOCs, and their motion coprocessors. Both these articles should make it clear that the other exists and has its own article.

– Ben Leggiero (talk) 17:21, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * There's no Apple M1 motion coprocessor; the motion coprocessors start with M7. (In addition, starting with the M9, the motion coprocessors aren't chips of their own - they're just components of A-series chips, just as the CPU, GPU, and, in newer chips, the "neural engine" are components of the chip.)
 * So I don't think pages for individual M-series Mac chips need to refer to Apple motion coprocessors until there's an M7 chip. Perhaps the section of Apple-designed processors linked to by Apple M series, namely Apple-designed processors, should have a hatnote saying something such as "Apple M series redirects here; for Apple's line of motion coprocessors, see Apple motion coprocessors", using Template:Redirect.  Apple motion coprocessors could, similarly, have a hatnote saying "This is about Apple's M series of motion coprocessors; for the M series of systems on chips for Macs, see Apple-designed processors." Guy Harris (talk) 20:22, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I understand and agree. I just wanted to get ahead of the problem before it crops up. – Ben Leggiero (talk) 15:55, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

Additional hardware info useful
For example, cacheline size is useful for high-speed application development. Does anyone have that data yet? Thanks. --Rsjaffe (talk) 19:08, 17 November 2020 (UTC)

Is the first sentence correct?
"The Apple M1 is the first ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc. for its line of Macintosh computers."

As far as I'm aware, the T1 and T2 chips are ARM-based SoCs powering a separate iBridge device inside Macs, which runs bridgeOS. These pre-date the M1 SoC by just over 4 years. I'll place a Dubious on that line until/unless we agree on the accuracy of this statement. – Ben Leggiero (talk) 17:55, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
 * It's the first ARM-based SoC designed to be the CPU of a Mac. Perhaps it should be rephrased to make that clearer. Guy Harris (talk) 18:45, 19 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I thought of doing that, but then I remembered that the T1 and T2 are also CPUs/GPUs of Mac devices, just not the ones which run macOS. The M1 SoC is also used as the Mac's primary display's GPU, neural engine, and other such non-CPU system components, so it also can't strictly be said to be the CPU of the Mac. I think the verbiage you amended into this article is better, but still not entirely accurate. Perhaps something about it being the first SoC which runs macOS? – Ben Leggiero (talk) 20:28, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * The T1 and T2 aren't CPUs in the sense of being the central processing unit - they're a peripheral controllers (Touch Bar), security processors, and start up processors (sort of like the console processors that some IBM mainframes have).
 * They're GPUs in the sense of 1) drawing the Touch Bar and, I think, 2) drawing on the screen early in the boot process and possibly drawing the battery image when you plug it in, but they're not what applications and WindowServer use to draw the GUI.
 * The M1 SoC may be more than just a CPU, but the CPU(s) are part of it. And I think some x86 processors Apple's used have on-chip GPUs, in which case they're also more than just CPUs. Guy Harris (talk) 20:42, 20 November 2020 (UTC)


 * I mean, yes and no. I looked into it, and I encourage you to as well in case I'm wrong, but as far as I can tell, the TouchBar, camera, mic, etc. are all part of a separate device, which is interwoven into the Mac as much as the Intel device is. This device, the iBridge, runs bridgeOS, which is a fork of watchOS. It's an entire device, with its own central processing and all. It's not like a motion coprocessor or tensor unit or discrete GPU; it actually functions as a separate device. The iBridge device communicates with the Intel chipset via a permanent internal USB connection. It's analogous to plugging a phone into the computer; even if one can control the phone with the computer and use it as a peripheral device, we would never say that once the phone no longer has a CPU in this state. The sticky part is that iBridge is actually physically a part of the Mac in the same way that the Intel chipset is, and that the rest of the Mac cannot function without iBridge, nor can iBridge function without the rest of the Mac, since iBridge takes the responsibility of managing boot and other secure operations, and the Intel device tells the iBridge device what to display, when to activate its camera, etc. – Ben Leggiero (talk) 21:58, 20 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, many computer systems have more than one processor in them, but only some of the processors are generally considered "central" processors.
 * The KL10 had a PDP-11/40 as a front end processor; that front-end processor was responsible for starting up the main processor (that might include loading CPU microcode, as well as booting the CPU).
 * Various IBM mainframes also had console processors; I think some were PowerPC microprocessors, and they may have run either IBM's internal Workplace OS's OS/2 personality or Linux or both.
 * And I think the System Management Controller (SMC)/Power Management Unit (PMU)/System Management Unit (SMU) on Macs without the T-series chips included microcontrollers of some sort.
 * So, yes, a lot of computer systems have processors in them that, were you to remove them, would brick the system, but I don't see them being as significant as the main processor. Apple replacing whatever microcontroller is used in the SMC/PMU/SMU (which might well have included an ARM core of some sort) with a processor of their own design (even if it's powerful enough to run Darwin as its OS) is "well, that's nice, but it doesn't affect users that much; Apple replacing the x86 "application processor", if you will, with an ARM processor of their own design is a lot more significant. Guy Harris (talk) 01:59, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

Neural Engine
What is the purpose of the Neural Engine and what is the significance of the trillions of operations it can allegedly, but uncitedly, perform each second? 87.75.117.183 (talk) 04:03, 21 November 2020 (UTC)

(sorry it isn't indented - couldn't figure out how :/ ) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Synt4x 3rr0r at Line 420 (talk • contribs) 03:14, 6 December 2020 (UTC)  EDIT: SineBot, I think it's obvious that I wrote that.

The Neural Engine was designed to accelerate machine learning & AI tasks. AFAIK, the chip (or part of the chip, I guess) is an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) which means that it is very fast and efficient, though only at the task that it is meant to do (AI and machine learning.) Synt4x 3rr0r at Line 420 (talk) 03:12, 6 December 2020 (UTC)


 * Apparently multiply-accumulate operations (MAC operations) are popular operations in artificial neural networks, and there are several patent applications from Apple discussing neural network processors that, among other things, perform multiply-accumulate operations. See, for example,, , , and .  (For more patents, search for patent applications with various of the inventors listed and with an assignee name of "Apple" on the US Patent and Trademark Office patent application search.)
 * They might be done, for example, when doing convolutions of functions (convolutions are also mentioned in those patents) - calculating the integral of the product of two functions would appear to involve multiplying the values of the functions at various points and adding them. Guy Harris (talk) 06:26, 6 December 2020 (UTC)

64 Bit?
Is the M1 chip 64 bit? 32 bit? N0w8st8s (talk) 01:16, 23 December 2020 (UTC)n0w8st8s
 * 64-bit. (Apple doesn't do 32-bit Macs any more; Catalina doesn't even support 32-bit applications.) Guy Harris (talk) 02:42, 23 December 2020 (UTC)