Perhaps one reason for using a single model of chip for everything is because th... | Hacker News

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		robocat on April 23, 2021 \| parent \| context \| favorite \| on: Apple’s M1 Positioning Mocks the Entire x86 Busine... Perhaps one reason for using a single model of chip for everything is because the design costs for a 5nm SoC are estimated to be ~$500 million. For comparison, revenue for Apple Mac computers in 2020 was ~$30 Billion. https://www.statista.com/statistics/263428/apples-revenue-fr...

dannyw on April 23, 2021 [–]

It's not linear. Doing a M1 variant with say 6+6 wouldn't cost another 500 mil.

robocat on April 23, 2021 | [–]

Sure. But does Apple's CPU engineering team have the capacity to work on variants?

Perhaps they instead prioritise working on a faster M2, and M1 becomes the low end CPU, similar to what they have done with the A series processors?

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