The lead architect of every main Apple CPU from A7 to the M1Max is still going through a court case, being sued because of a non-compete for trying to do a startup
https://www.theregister.com/2019/12/09/apple_nuvia_ceo_suit/
749 karma · joined April 30, 2011
Anything that delays EUV production is a big deal to everyone doing leading edge chips - there is a massive backlog on demand for EUV capable manufacturing that will be a bottleneck for volume production for everyone. I thought TSMC maybe had most of the existing machines but will need more to keep up with demand - Intel and Samsung will be wanting as many as they can get their hands on too.
The worry with this type of extremely specialist equipment manufacture is that throwing huge amounts of money (in addition to billions already spent) likely won’t resolve the recovery any quicker.
Seems maybe the industry bottleneck is not the ability to manufacture chips - it’s one level up - the single source production of facilities that make the machines that make thr chips
Burden of proof and reasonable doubt come in to play - for such a complex system could you prove beyond that there are no dodgy software bugs or that a particle from outer space didn’t flip a bit causing cause something to go wrong?
Maybe in another decade I’ll finally get that ‘hide podcasts’ button I want too!
I would assume Apple’s justification is that this is to meet security requirements, particularly given a phone is now commonly used for contactless payments.
Hey Spotify: since I haven’t found a good alternative to your service, if I can’t stop your monopoly giving my money to Joe Rogan, can I at least have a ‘hide podcasts’ option?
I have discovered that if I leave a usb cable plugged into a MacBook Air M1 usbc socket in standby, it draws about half a watt extra, even though the cable power draw is zero.
This means the battery goes flat in a few days vs a few weeks in standby - the PHY seems to be using more power in standby than rest of laptop
For a small volume ‘shuttle’ run hopefully there won’t be delays, but this is not the same as having working chips!
The foundry will do initial checks it is manufacturable at ‘tapeout’ when you submit your design, but you don’t know for sure if your chip works with intended functionality until you get it back! You are relying on lots and lots of simulations up front before your ‘tape-out’.
Sometimes issues are found and a chip requires a re-spin - basically another go with the bugs fixed. You want to do this as few times as possible (ideally right first time) due to cost and time of these iterations.
Teardown showing PCB at: https://youtu.be/iOmdQnIlnRo?t=2152
And more detailed RF analysis at https://youtu.be/h6MfM8EFkGg
What are the odds someone just guessed an unlinked url?
My solution was to use an LG thunderbolt monitor (which has a usb3 output), and hang a cheap self powered usb3 hub off that for all the lower bandwidth peripherals.
This has worked well between Mac and pc so far, just one cable that does 4k60, 100W power delivery and handles all the other peripherals in the background.
One gotcha: Apparently some monitors deep sleep options mean the monitor powers down the hub and laptop won’t wake up from keyboard/mouse events!
Hopefully via usb4 thunderbolt can be commoditized and we can get cheaper universal hubs rather than a $300+ dock, but at the moment you need to spend a huge amount to do anything with multiple thunderbolt connections.