Apple M1

The Apple M1 is the first ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc. as a central processing unit (CPU) for its line of Macintosh computers. It was inspired by their ARM A14 chip.[3] It is deployed in the MacBook Air (M1, 2020), Mac mini (M1, 2020), and the MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020).[4] It is the first personal computer chip built using a 5 nm process. Apple claims that it has the world's fastest CPU core "in low power silicon" and the world's best CPU performance per watt.[3][5]

Apple M1
General information
LaunchedNovember 10, 2020[1]
Designed byApple Inc.
Common manufacturer(s)
Product codeAPL1102[2]
Performance
Max. CPU clock rate3.2 GHz[1]
Cache
L2 cache12 MB (performance cores)
4 MB (efficient cores)
Architecture and classification
ApplicationDesktop (Mac Mini), Notebook (MacBook family)
Min. feature size5 nm
Microarchitecture"Firestorm" and "Icestorm"[1]
Instruction setAArch64; ARMv8-A
Physical specifications
Transistors
  • 16 billion
Cores
  • 8 (4× high-performance + 4× high-efficiency)
GPU(s)Apple-designed 8 core
Mac transition to
Apple Silicon

Architecture

The M1 has four high-performance Firestorm and four energy-efficient Icestorm cores, providing a configuration similar to ARM DynamIQ and Intel's hybrid Lakefield and Alder Lake processors.[6] This combination allows power-use optimizations not possible with Apple–Intel architecture devices. Apple claims the energy-efficient cores use one tenth the power of the high-performance ones.[7] The high-performance cores have 192 KB of L1 instruction cache and 128 KB of L1 data cache and share a 12 MB L2 cache; the energy-efficient cores have a 128 KB L1 instruction cache, 64 KB L1 data cache, and a shared 4 MB L2 cache. The Icestorm "E cluster" has a frequency of 0.6–2.064 GHz and a maximum power consumption of 1.3 W. The Firestorm "P cluster" has a frequency of 0.6–3.204 GHz and a maximum power consumption of 13.8 W.[8]

Rosetta 2 dynamic binary translation technology enables M1-equipped products to run software built for Intel x86 CPUs.

The M1 uses 4266 MT/s LPDDR4X SDRAM[9] in a unified memory configuration shared by all the components of the processor. The SoC and RAM chips are mounted together in a system-in-a-package design. 8 GB and 16 GB configurations are available.

The M1 integrates an Apple-designed eight-core (seven in some models) graphics processing unit (GPU). Each GPU core contains eight "executions units (EUs)", which in turn contain eight ALUs per execution unit. In total, the M1 GPU contains up to 128 EUs and 1024 ALUs,[10] which by Apple's claim can execute nearly 25,000 threads simultaneously and have a maximum floating point (FP32) performance of 2.6 TFLOPs.

The M1 also contains dedicated neural network hardware in a 16-core Neural Engine, capable of executing 11 trillion operations per second.[6] Other components include an image signal processor (ISP), an NVMe storage controller, Thunderbolt 4 controllers, and a Secure Enclave.

Performance and efficiency

The M1 was welcomed with very positive reviews[11] and recorded industry-leading performance and efficiency in popular benchmarks (GeekBench 5, Cinebench R2).[12] The benchmarking methodology for single thread synthetic benchmarks was criticized as being flawed when comparing to simultaneous multithreading enabled x86 CPUs.[13][14]

The MacBook Air (M1, 2020) and MacBook Pro (M1, 2020) are considered to be the fastest MacBooks ever produced by Apple with the MacBook Pro (M1, 2020) leading the field in battery life.[15]

  • The processor without the heatspreader showing the CPU die and the small SMD capacitors underneath.
  • The Apple M1 processor with the heatspreader, only showing the two modules containing the LPDDR4X SDRAM.
  • M1 on a MacMini9,1 (M1, 2020) logic board compared with A13 SOC on an iPhone 11 CPU board.

Products that include the Apple M1

References
  1. Frumusanu, Andrei (November 17, 2020), The 2020 Mac Mini Unleashed: Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test, retrieved 2020-11-18
  2. [Teardown] Late 2020 Mac mini: Apple Silicon M1, Thunderbolt..., retrieved 2020-11-18
  3. "The Apple M1 is the first ARM-based chipset for Macs with the fastest CPU cores and top iGPU". GSMArena.com. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  4. "New MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac Mini With Apple M1 SoC". NDTV Gadgets 360. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  5. Sohail, Omar (2020-11-10). "Apple's 5nm M1 Chip Is the First for ARM-Based Macs - Boasts 2x More Performance Than Latest Laptop CPU, Uses One-Fourth the Power". Wccftech. Retrieved 2020-11-11.
  6. "Apple M1 Chip". Apple.com. Apple. Retrieved 11 November 2020.
  7. "Here's what the future of Apple silicon Macs look like". iMore. 2020-11-10. Retrieved 2020-12-05.
  8. Panzarino, Matthew. "I noticed a lot of reviews getting confused by the CPU clock and what the specs were there, here's a live dump of what the Performance and Efficiency clusters are up to during a Cinebench R23 multithread bench". Twitter.
  9. "M1 MacBook Air & Pro - EXCLUSIVE Apple Interview! | The Tech Chap - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2020-11-14.
  10. Frumusanu, Andrei. "The 2020 Mac Mini Unleashed: Putting Apple Silicon M1 To The Test". www.anandtech.com. Retrieved 2021-01-30.
  11. Cade, DL (December 21, 2020). "Apple Silicon M1 MacBook Pro Review: This Changes Everything". PetaPixel.
  12. Antoniadis, Anastasios (November 21, 2020). "Apple M1 Benchmarks Are Here – Apple Delivered Performance and Efficiency". Borderpolar.
  13. "Exclusive: Why Apple M1 Single "Core" Comparisons Are Fundamentally Flawed (With Benchmarks)". December 2, 2020.
  14. "Current x86 vs. Apple M1 Performance Measurements Are Flawed". December 7, 2020.
  15. Cunningham, Andrew (December 18, 2020). "The Best MacBooks". The New York Times.
  16. "MacBook Air (M1, 2020) - Technical Specifications". support.apple.com. Retrieved 2020-11-13.
  17. "Mac mini (M1, 2020) - Technical specifications". support.apple.com. Retrieved 2020-11-13.
  18. "MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020) - Technical Specifications". support.apple.com. Retrieved 2020-11-13.
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