7) What did Apple do in 2020 that challenged status quo for laptop and desktop computers?
Instructor solution
Apple introduced laptops and a mac mini that used an M1 RISC SOC instead of Intel's CISC architecture.
Apple had to address two problems:
(1) RISC processors use a lot of RAM, and
(2) that GPUs need RAM with very high throughput.
The M1 solves both problems by unifying RAM & VRAM into fast high throughput memory.
In addition, the SSD is optimized so that it essentially works like traditional RAM.
Because it is easy to split up RISC instructions (which are fixed-length) as compared to variable-length CISC instructions,
the M1 can decode 8 independent operations in parallel per clock cycle.
The best Intel and AMD can do with CISC is to decode 4 independent operations in parallel per clock cycle because they have the overhead of determining where an instruction begins and ends.
So an M1 can process twice as many instructions as a CISC processor with the same clock speed. That means the M1 stays cooler while achieving the same performance. The M1 may be the first in a revolution that moves from large motherboards with modular components (like I've been showing you) to SOCs which are super-efficient, but not modifiable.
Why the M1 chip changes the Industry
Think you've got it?
What are the advantages of the M1 chip over Intel's chips?
- A.
The M1 RISC chip is faster, cooler and uses less power than comparable Intel chips.
- B.
There is no advantage. Apple just wants to make cheap laptops
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