Chips that can transform computing

Farhad Manju

New York Times

For decades, chip-making giant Intel has reigned as one of Silicon Valley’s most technologically advanced companies.

It was Intel co-founder Gordon Moore who famously predicted that computer chips would be unimaginably powerful. And it was Intel’s product, the x86 line of microprocessors at the heart of almost every personal computer, that turned Moore’s prophecy into the dominant “law” of technology. Each year, Intel’s promise that new chips will be much faster than older chips sets the rhythm of progress across the industry.

But somewhere in the last decade, Intel has lost its plot. I was dazzled by new trends such as the increasing utility of graphic processors and the widespread use of mobile devices, and suffered from a series of embarrassing operational delays. Even more surprising than Intel’s slippage is which companies have become successful as processor pacesetters. Intel’s next CEO, Pat Gelsinger, who met with employees earlier this year, was reluctant to even speak the name of his enemy. According to The Oregonian, he jokingly called the new chip champion “Cupertino’s lifestyle company.”

Of course, Cupertino, CA is Apple’s home and its focus on design, aesthetics, and ease of use remains vulnerable to Gelsinger’s implications that the product is more fashionable than feature. Often there is. But last month, Apple announced a new laptop built around its own custom-designed processors, the M1 Pro and M1 Max. These made such bargains completely ridiculous.

Early reviews of Apple’s new machines were very enthusiastic: “the most powerful laptop I’ve ever seen”, “dramatically better than any other business”, “generally ridiculous” I was worried that I would only be disappointed. When I picked up one, it turned out to be as frustrating as every computer is inevitably always.

I’m not disappointed. I was bowling. I’ve been using the new MacBook Pro with Apple’s fastest new chip, the M1 Max, for about two weeks, and I can’t remember when the laptop last surprised me this way. In fact, laptops are just laptops, so I don’t think you’ve ever been really surprised.

But this ridiculously fast laptop made me think broadly about what’s to come. Over the past few years, some engineers have been worried that Moore’s Law may be lacking. Soon, at some point, expert theorized, microchips will begin to reach their basic physical limits, making further performance gains very difficult. Also, because processors are essentially computer engines, their imminent limitations also meant the ultimate limitation on the usefulness of computing.

I called in a few experts to ask what Apple’s innovations could tell us about the future of computing. Easy Answer: There is still a way to go before hitting a wall.

The M1 chip makes your laptop as powerful as some of the fastest desktops on the market, but its battery life exceeds that of other laptops. The chip predicts a completely saturated future with computing power, with very powerful processors running on cars, drones, virtual reality machines, and almost everything else, as well as traditional computers and smartphones. ..

How Apple achieved these benefits is an interesting business and technical story. About a year after Apple released its first iPhone, in 2008, Apple bought a small semiconductor startup to make chips specifically for mobile phones. For many years, Intel chips have been manufactured primarily for fixed machines such as servers and personal computers. To achieve maximum speed, Intel processors had to consume a lot of power and generate a lot of heat. However, Apple’s most important product is mobile, powered by batteries, so supplying large amounts of power wasn’t ideal. The chip designer had to take a completely different approach. Instead of maximizing raw power, Apple sought to build chips that optimized power and efficiency.

The technical way Apple achieved this combination would sound like a ridiculous gibberish to anyone who hasn’t learned semiconductor theory. However, broadly speaking, Apple’s system uses many specialized processing units and is optimized to perform more operations “in no particular order.” This is basically a jargon that means you can run more code at the same time.

The result is something like the difference between a muscle car and a Tesla. Muscle cars achieve high speeds with a huge engine that burns a lot of gasoline. Tesla’s electric motors are inherently more efficient than gas engines, allowing them to hit even higher speeds while consuming less power. For years, Intel has been manufacturing muscle cars. Apple’s major innovation was building a computer chip Tesla.

Apple has also benefited from a huge economies of scale. Since the iPhone is one of the most profitable products ever sold, the company has invested billions of dollars in custom chip operations, and iPhone chips for the iPad, Apple TV, and now the Mac. Can afford to reuse.

Apple’s investment has helped create new competition in the tip business. Intel has invested $ 20 billion in a new chip manufacturing plant, and other chip makers (TSMC, which manufactures processors for Samsung and Apple) have invested a total of hundreds of billions of dollars to increase capacity.

If I sound a little grumpy about microchips, it’s because there haven’t been many breakthrough innovations in the tech business for years. Facebook hasn’t ruined democracy, Google continues to suck more money from ads, and each new iPhone is a little better than last time.

I feel that Apple’s processor is really new. For better or for worse, the functionality of the device will improve dramatically over the next few years. The fastest phones today are more powerful than computers just a few years ago. Andrei Frumusanu, who featured Apple’s new processor on tech news site Anandtech, told me that he hopes Apple can continue to push similar profits for at least the next decade.

And other tech companies will spend a lot of money to catch up. After seeing what Apple did, Frumsanu said, “Everyone is just surprised.”

This article was originally published in The New York Times.

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