Apple M1 is a series of
ARM-based
systems-on-a-chip (SoCs)
designed by Apple Inc. as a
central processing unit
A central processing unit (CPU), also called a central processor, main processor or just processor, is the electronic circuitry that executes instructions comprising a computer program. The CPU performs basic arithmetic, logic, controlling, an ...
(CPU) and
graphics processing unit
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mo ...
(GPU) for its
Mac desktops and
notebooks
A notebook is a small book often used for writing.
Notebook or The Notebook may also refer to:
Computing
*Laptop, a type of personal computer
*Google Notebook, a discontinued online application
* Notebook interface, a type of programming environ ...
, and the
iPad Pro
The iPad Pro is a premium model of Apple's iPad tablet computer. It runs iPadOS, a tablet-optimized version of the iOS operating system.
The original iPad Pro was introduced in September 2015, and ran iOS 9. The second-generation iPad ...
and
iPad Air
The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating ...
tablets.
The M1 chip initiated Apple's third
change
Change or Changing may refer to:
Alteration
* Impermanence, a difference in a state of affairs at different points in time
* Menopause, also referred to as "the change", the permanent cessation of the menstrual period
* Metamorphosis, or chang ...
to the
instruction set architecture
In computer science, an instruction set architecture (ISA), also called computer architecture, is an abstract model of a computer. A device that executes instructions described by that ISA, such as a central processing unit (CPU), is called an ...
used by Macintosh computers, switching from
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the devel ...
to
Apple silicon
Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) processors designed by Apple Inc., mainly using the ARM architecture. It is the basis of most new Mac computers as well as iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch, Apple ...
14 years after they were
switched from PowerPC to Intel, and 26 years after the transition from the original
Motorola 68000 series
The Motorola 68000 series (also known as 680x0, m68000, m68k, or 68k) is a family of 32-bit complex instruction set computer (CISC) microprocessors. During the 1980s and early 1990s, they were popular in personal computers and workstations and ...
to
PowerPC
PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple– IBM ...
. At the time of introduction in 2020, Apple said that the M1 had the world's fastest CPU core "in low power silicon" and the world's best CPU
performance per watt
In computing, performance per watt is a measure of the energy efficiency of a particular computer architecture or computer hardware. Literally, it measures the rate of computation that can be delivered by a computer for every watt of power consu ...
.
Its successor,
Apple M2
The Apple M2 is an ARM-based system on a chip (SoC) designed by Apple Inc. as a central processing unit (CPU) and graphics processing unit (GPU) for its Mac notebooks and the iPad Pro tablet. It is the second generation of ARM architecture in ...
, was announced on June 6, 2022 at
WWDC.
The M1 was introduced in November 2020, and was followed by the professional-focused M1 Pro and M1 Max chips in October 2021. The M1 Max is a higher-powered version of the M1 Pro, with more
GPU cores and
memory bandwidth
Memory bandwidth is the rate at which data can be read from or stored into a semiconductor memory by a processor. Memory bandwidth is usually expressed in units of bytes/second, though this can vary for systems with natural data sizes that are n ...
and a larger
die size. Apple introduced the M1 Ultra in 2022, combining two M1 Max chips in one package. These chips differ largely in size and the number of functional units: for example, while the original M1 has about 16 billion
transistor
upright=1.4, gate (G), body (B), source (S) and drain (D) terminals. The gate is separated from the body by an insulating layer (pink).
A transistor is a semiconductor device used to Electronic amplifier, amplify or electronic switch, switch ...
s, the M1 Ultra has 114 billion.
Apple's
macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...
and
iPadOS
iPadOS is a mobile operating system developed by Apple Inc. for its iPad line of tablet computers. It is a rebranded variant of iOS, the operating system used by Apple's iPhones, renamed to reflect the diverging features of the two product ...
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...
s both run on the M1. Initial support for the M1 SoC in the
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...
kernel was released in version 5.13 on June 27, 2021. The initial versions of the M1 chips contain an architectural defect that permits sandboxed applications to exchange data, violating the security model, an issue that has been described as "mostly harmless".
Design
CPU
The M1 has four high-performance "Firestorm" and four energy-efficient "Icestorm"
cores, first seen on the
A14 Bionic
The Apple A14 Bionic is a 64-bit ARMv8.5-A system on a chip (SoC), designed by Apple Inc. It appears in the fourth generation iPad Air and tenth generation iPad, as well as iPhone 12 Mini, iPhone 12, iPhone 12 Pro, and iPhone 12 Pro Max. ...
. It has a
hybrid
Hybrid may refer to:
Science
* Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding
** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species
** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two diff ...
configuration similar to
ARM DynamIQ and Intel's
Lakefield,
Alder Lake and
Raptor Lake
Raptor Lake is Intel's codename for the 13th-generation of Intel Core processors based on a hybrid architecture, utilizing Raptor Cove performance cores and Gracemont efficient cores. Raptor Lake launched on October 20, 2022. Mobile versions a ...
processors.
This combination allows power-use optimizations not possible with previous
Apple–Intel architecture
The Apple–Intel architecture, or Mactel, is an unofficial name used for Macintosh personal computers developed and manufactured by Apple Inc. that use Intel x86 processors, rather than the PowerPC and Motorola 68000 ("68k") series processor ...
devices. Apple claims the energy-efficient cores use one-tenth the power of the high-performance ones. The high-performance cores have an unusually large 192 KB of L1
instruction cache
A CPU cache is a hardware cache used by the central processing unit (CPU) of a computer to reduce the average cost (time or energy) to access data from the main memory. A cache is a smaller, faster memory, located closer to a processor core, whic ...
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 SoC also has a 8MB System Level Cache shared by the GPU.
The M1 Pro and M1 Max use the same
ARM big.LITTLE
ARM big.LITTLE is a heterogeneous computing architecture developed by ARM Holdings, coupling relatively battery-saving and slower processor cores (''LITTLE'') with relatively more powerful and power-hungry ones (''big''). Typically, only one "s ...
design as the M1, with eight high-performance "Firestorm" (six in the
lower-binned variants of the M1 Pro) and two energy-efficient "Icestorm"
cores, providing a total of ten cores (eight in the lower-binned variants of the M1 Pro).
The high-performance cores are clocked at 3228 MHz, and the high-efficiency cores are clocked at 2064 MHz. The eight high-performance cores are split into two clusters. Each high-performance cluster shares 12 MB of L2 cache. The two high-efficiency cores share 4 MB of L2 cache. The M1 Pro and M1 Max have 24 MB and 48 MB respectively of system level cache (SLC).
The M1 Ultra combines two M1 Max chips in one package
for a total of 20 CPU cores and 96 MB system level cache (SLC).
GPU
The M1 integrates an Apple designed
eight-core (seven in some base models) graphics processing unit (GPU). Each GPU core is split into 16 Execution Units, which each contain eight
Arithmetic Logic Unit
In computing, an arithmetic logic unit (ALU) is a combinational digital circuit that performs arithmetic and bitwise operations on integer binary numbers. This is in contrast to a floating-point unit (FPU), which operates on floating point numb ...
s (ALUs). In total, the M1 GPU contains up to 128
Execution unit
In computer engineering, an execution unit (E-unit or EU) is a part of the central processing unit (CPU) that performs the operations and calculations as instructed by the computer program. It may have its own internal control sequence unit (not ...
s or 1024 ALUs, which Apple says can execute up to 24,576 threads simultaneously and which have a maximum floating point (FP32) performance of 2.6
TFLOPs.
The M1 Pro integrates a 16-core (14 in some base models) graphics processing unit (GPU), while the M1 Max integrates a 32-core (24 in some base models) GPU. In total, the M1 Max GPU contains up to 512
execution unit
In computer engineering, an execution unit (E-unit or EU) is a part of the central processing unit (CPU) that performs the operations and calculations as instructed by the computer program. It may have its own internal control sequence unit (not ...
s or 4096 ALUs, which have a maximum floating point (FP32) performance of 10.4
TFLOPs.
The M1 Ultra features a 48- or 64-core GPU with up to 8192 ALUs and 21 TFLOPs of FP32 performance.
Memory
The M1 uses a 128-bit
LPDDR4X SDRAM 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 Pro has 256-bit
LPDDR
Low-Power Double Data Rate (LPDDR), also known as LPDDR SDRAM, is a type of synchronous dynamic random-access memory that consumes less power and is targeted for mobile computers and devices such as mobile phones. Older variants are also known a ...
5 SDRAM memory, and the M1 Max has 512-bit LPDDR5 SDRAM memory. While the M1 SoC has 66.67GB/s memory bandwidth, the M1 Pro has 200GB/s bandwidth and the M1 Max has a 400GB/s bandwidth.
The M1 Pro comes in memory configurations of 16 GB and 32 GB, and the M1 Max comes in configurations of 32 GB and 64 GB.
The M1 Ultra doubles the specs of the M1 Max for a 1024-bit or 1-kilobit memory bus with 800GB/s bandwidth in a 64 GB or 128 GB configuration.
Other features
The M1 contains dedicated
neural network hardware in a 16-core Neural Engine, capable of executing 11 trillion operations per second.
Other components include an
image signal processor, a
PCIe
PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe or PCI-e, is a high-speed serial computer expansion bus standard, designed to replace the older PCI, PCI-X and AGP bus standards. It is the common m ...
storage controller, a
USB4
USB4 (aka: USB 4.0) is a specification by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), which was released in version 1.0 on 29 August 2019. The USB4 protocol is based on the Thunderbolt 3 protocol; the Thunderbolt 3 specification was donated to the US ...
controller that includes
Thunderbolt 3
Thunderbolt is the brand name of a hardware interface for the connection of external peripherals to a computer. It has been developed by Intel, in collaboration with Apple. It was initially marketed under the name Light Peak, and first sold as ...
support, and a
Secure Enclave
Secure may refer to:
* Security, being protected against danger or loss(es)
**Physical security, security measures that are designed to deny unauthorized access to facilities, equipment, and resources
**Information security, defending information ...
. The M1 Pro, Max and Ultra support
Thunderbolt 4.
The M1 has video codec encoding support for
HEVC
High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), also known as H.265 and MPEG-H Part 2, is a video compression standard designed as part of the MPEG-H project as a successor to the widely used Advanced Video Coding (AVC, H.264, or MPEG-4 Part 10). In compa ...
and
H.264. It has decoding support for HEVC, H.264, and
ProRes. The M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 Ultra have a media engine which has hardware-accelerated H.264, HEVC, ProRes, and ProRes RAW. This media engine includes a video decode engine (the M1 Ultra has two), a video encode engine (the M1 Max has two and the M1 Ultra has four), and a ProRes encode and decode engine (again the M1 Max has two and the M1 Ultra has four).
The M1 Max supports High Power Mode on the 16-inch MacBook Pro for intensive tasks. The M1 Pro supports two 6K displays at 60Hz over Thunderbolt, while the M1 Max supports a third 6K display over Thunderbolt and a
4K monitor over
HDMI 2.0.
All parameters of the M1 Max processors are doubled in M1 Ultra processors, as they are essentially two M1 Max processors operating in parallel; they are in a single package (in size being bigger than
Socket AM4 AMD Ryzen processor)
and seen as one processor in macOS.
Performance and efficiency
The M1 recorded competitive performance and efficiency in popular benchmarks (
Geekbench
Geekbench is a cross-platform utility for benchmarking the central processing unit of computers. Geekbench began as a benchmark for Mac OS X and Windows and was created by John Poole who ran the now-defunct Geek Patrol website, which reviewed ha ...
5,
Cinebench
Cinema 4D is a 3D software suite developed by the German company Maxon.
Overview
As of R21, only one version of Cinema 4D is available. It replaces all previous variants, including BodyPaint 3D, and includes all features of the past 'Studio' ...
R23).
The 2020 M1-equipped
Mac Mini draws 7 watts when idle and 39 watts at maximum load, compared with 20 watts idle and 122 watts maximum load for the 2018 6-core Intel i7 Mac mini. The energy efficiency of the M1 increases battery life of M1-based MacBooks by 50% compared to previous Intel-based MacBooks.
At release, the MacBook Air (M1, 2020) and MacBook Pro (M1, 2020) were praised by critics for their CPU performance and battery life, particularly compared to previous MacBooks.
Products that use the Apple M1 series
M1
*
MacBook Air (M1, 2020)
The MacBook Air with Apple silicon is a line of Macintosh notebook computers developed and manufactured by Apple Inc. since 2020, which employ custom-designed systems-on-a-chip, called the Apple M series. In the current product line, the MacBook ...
– base model has 7-core GPU
*
Mac Mini (M1, 2020)
*
MacBook Pro (13-inch, M1, 2020)
*
iMac
iMac is a family of all-in-one Mac desktop computers designed and built by Apple Inc. It has been the primary part of Apple's consumer desktop offerings since its debut in August 1998, and has evolved through seven distinct forms.
In i ...
(24-inch, M1, 2021) – base model has 7-core GPU
*
iPad Pro (11-inch, 3rd generation) (2021)
*
iPad Pro (12.9-inch, 5th generation) (2021)
*
iPad Air (5th generation)
The iPad Air (5th generation), colloquially known as the iPad Air 5, is a tablet computer designed, developed, and marketed by Apple Inc. It was announced by Apple on March 8, 2022. Pre-orders began on March 11, 2022, and shipping began on Marc ...
(2022)
M1 Pro
*
MacBook Pro (14-inch and 16-inch, 2021)
M1 Max
* MacBook Pro (14-inch and 16-inch, 2021)
*
Mac Studio
Mac Studio is a small-form-factor workstation designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Inc. It is one of four desktop computers in the Mac lineup, sitting above the consumer-range Mac Mini and iMac, and positioned below the Mac Pro. It is c ...
(2022)
M1 Ultra
* Mac Studio (2022)
Problems
USB power delivery bricking
After its release, some users who charged M1 devices through USB-C hubs reported
bricking their device.
The devices that are reported to cause this issue were third-party USB-C hubs and non-Thunderbolt docks (excluding Apple's own dongle).
Apple handled this issue by replacing the logic board and by telling its customers not to charge through those hubs.
macOS Big Sur
macOS Big Sur (version 11) is the seventeenth software versioning, major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s operating system for Macintosh computers. It was announced at Apple's Apple Worldwide Developers Conference, Worldwide Developers Conferen ...
11.2.2 includes a fix to prevent 2019 or later MacBook Pro models and 2020 or later MacBook Air models from being damaged by certain third-party USB-C hubs and docks.
Security vulnerabilities
M1racles
A flaw in M1 processors, given the name "M1racles", was announced in May 2021. Two sandboxed applications can exchange data without the system's knowledge by using an unintentionally writable
processor register
A processor register is a quickly accessible location available to a computer's processor. Registers usually consist of a small amount of fast storage, although some registers have specific hardware functions, and may be read-only or write-only. ...
as a
covert channel
In computer security, a covert channel is a type of attack that creates a capability to transfer information objects between processes that are not supposed to be allowed to communicate by the computer security policy. The term, originated in 19 ...
, violating the security model and constituting a minor vulnerability. It was discovered by
Hector Martin
Hector Martin (26 December 1898–9 August 1972) was a Belgian road racing cyclist, professional from 1925 to 1935. In 1924 he won the "Tour of Flanders for Independents" and the Belgian championship cycling for independents . From 1925 to ...
, founder of the
Asahi Linux project for Linux on Apple Silicon.
Augury
In May 2022 a flaw termed "Augury" was announced involving the Data-Memory Dependent
Prefetcher
The Prefetcher is a component of Microsoft Windows which was introduced in Windows XP. It is a component of the Memory Manager that can speed up the Windows boot process and shorten the amount of time it takes to start up programs. It accompli ...
(DMP) in M1 chips, discovered by researchers at
Tel Aviv University
Tel Aviv University (TAU) ( he, אוּנִיבֶרְסִיטַת תֵּל אָבִיב, ''Universitat Tel Aviv'') is a public research university in Tel Aviv, Israel. With over 30,000 students, it is the largest university in the country. Locate ...
, the
University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, and the
University of Washington
The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington.
Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seat ...
. It was not considered a substantial security risk at the time.
Pacman
In June 2022
MIT researchers announced they had found a
speculative execution
Speculative execution is an optimization technique where a computer system performs some task that may not be needed. Work is done before it is known whether it is actually needed, so as to prevent a delay that would have to be incurred by doing ...
vulnerability in M1 chips which they called "Pacman" after pointer authentication codes (PAC).
Apple said they did not believe this posed a serious threat to users.
Variants
The table below shows the various SoCs based on the "Firestorm" and "Icestorm" microarchitectures.
Gallery
See also
*
Rosetta 2
*
Universal 2 binary
*
List of Mac models grouped by CPU type
References
External links
*
{{Application ARM-based chips
Computer-related introductions in 2020
Apple silicon