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Comprehensive Analysis of Apple's M4 Chip

GOOVER DAILY REPORT 6/6/2024
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TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Introduction
  2. Core Message
  3. Introduction to the M4 Chip
  4. Technical Specifications
  5. Performance Comparison
  6. Innovations in the M4 Chip
  7. Applications and Use Cases
  8. Glossary
  9. Conclusion
  10. Source Documents

1. Introduction

  • This report provides a detailed exploration of Apple's latest M4 chip, its specifications, performance, advancements over previous models, and its applications, particularly in the new iPad Pro released in 2024.

2. Core Message

  • 2-1. Significance of Apple's M4 Chip

  • Apple's M4 chip signifies the latest advancement in the company's silicon technology, offering significant improvements in performance, efficiency, and machine learning capabilities. This new chip represents an important milestone in Apple's ongoing innovation in hardware development.

3. Introduction to the M4 Chip

  • 3-1. Overview of the M4 Chip

  • Apple has recently announced the M4 SoC, which serves as a significant advancement in their M-series chips. The M4 chip, making its debut in the 2024 iPad Pro, comes just over six months after the introduction of the M3. This new chip is lauded for its class-leading performance and power efficiency, particularly in areas related to machine learning and AI performance. Built using a second-generation 3-nanometer process from TSMC, the M4 comprises 28 billion transistors, marking a minor increase from its predecessor, the M3.

  • 3-2. Key features and enhancements

  • The M4 chip features several enhancements over the previous models. It has a new display engine designed to enable precise color accuracy and brightness uniformity, supporting the Ultra Retina XDR display. The CPU has seen improvements with up to a 1.5x increase in performance over the M2, thanks to the new architecture that includes up to four performance cores and six efficiency cores. The GPU remains similar to that of the M3, with 10 cores and added capabilities like hardware-accelerated ray tracing and dynamic caching. The Neural Engine in the M4 is the most powerful yet, capable of 38 trillion operations per second, which is a 60-fold increase compared to the first Neural Engine in the A11 Bionic chip. Additionally, it supports LPDDR5X memory, offering 120GB/second bandwidth, ensuring improved performance and energy efficiency.

  • 3-3. Applications in the new iPad Pro

  • The 2024 iPad Pro is the first device to incorporate the M4 chip. This addition transforms the iPad Pro into the most powerful device of its kind, enabling performance across various demanding professional applications and workflows. The new tablet offers two sizes, 11 inches and 13 inches, with both featuring the full spectrum of the M4’s capabilities. The M4 enhances the iPad Pro’s ability to manage complex tasks such as real-time 4K video editing, AI-powered features like Live Captions and Visual Look Up, and more. This ensures that the new iPad Pro delivers not only stellar performance but also significant battery life improvements, courtesy of the M4's power-efficient design.

4. Technical Specifications

  • 4-1. CPU Architecture

  • The Apple M4 chip features a new complex for the CPU, consisting of a combination of performance and efficiency cores. The top configuration includes 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores, while lower-tier models have a 3+6 configuration. The CPU brings improved machine learning acceleration capabilities, with updated AMX matrix units that include support for common ML number formats like FP16, BF16, and INT8. Benchmarks reveal the M4 delivers about 50% faster CPU performance compared to the M2, based on multi-threaded workloads. However, exact performance gains over the M3 are less pronounced, mainly attributed to the addition of 2 more efficiency cores in the M4's architecture.

  • 4-2. GPU Architecture

  • The GPU architecture in the M4 is largely carried over from the M3, featuring 10 cores. It includes advanced features such as ray tracing, mesh shading, and dynamic caching. The GPU is designed to handle demanding graphical tasks but is limited by the thermal constraints of iPad hardware when compared to actively-cooled devices like MacBooks. Furthermore, the M4 integrates the M3’s updated media engine block which supports AV1 video decoding, enhancing media handling capabilities over previous generations.

  • 4-3. Neural Engine Capabilities

  • The Neural Engine in the M4 maintains a 16-core design but delivers a significant increase in performance, reaching up to 38 TOPS (Trillion Operations Per Second) with INT8 precision. This is over twice the performance of the M3's neural engine, which was rated at 18 TOPS. This enhancement enables the M4 to manage more complex AI tasks much more efficiently compared to prior models.

  • 4-4. Memory Specifications

  • The M4 adopts LPDDR5X memory, reaching up to 7500 MT/second, allowing for a total bandwidth of 120GB/second, a 20% increase over the M3. It supports up to 24GB of RAM in high-end configurations, matching the memory capacity of the M3 but with enhanced performance due to the faster memory technology. The overall memory architecture ensures that the M4 can keep up with the demands of its enhanced CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine.

  • 4-5. Manufacturing Process

  • The M4 is manufactured using TSMC’s second-generation 3nm process node, known as N3E. This process offers improved performance and power efficiency over the N3B process used for the M3. The N3E process is not as dense as N3B but provides slight improvements in speed and efficiency, giving the M4 an edge in power consumption and performance.

5. Performance Comparison

  • 5-1. Comparison with Apple M3

  • The Apple M4 chip, clocked at 4.41 GHz with 10-cores, stands out when compared to the Apple M3 chip, which runs at 4.05 GHz with 8-cores. Specific benchmarks such as Cinebench R23 and GeekBench v6 show that the M4 edges out the M3 in both single-core and multi-core performance. Additionally, the power consumption efficiency is improved in the M4. Noteworthy is the increase in the number of transistors from 25 billion in the M3 to 28 billion in the M4, as well as the memory bandwidth which increased from 100Gbps to 120Gbps in the M4. Both chips utilize a 3nm manufacturing process, but the M4 benefits from a second-generation process, providing minor tuning improvements.

  • 5-2. Comparison with Apple M2

  • Comparing the Apple M4 to the older M2 chip reveals even more pronounced improvements. The M4's 10-core structure working at 4.41 GHz offers significant gains over the M2's 8-cores running at 3.5 GHz. Benchmark results show substantial leaps, with the M4 often outperforming the M2 by 23% on Geekbench's ML 0.6.0 test. Apple states that the M4 can achieve 38 trillion operations per second using INT8 data type, a notable increase from the M2's 15.8 TOPS. The M4 also introduces new features like a dedicated display engine which wasn’t available in the M2.

  • 5-3. Benchmark results

  • The performance of the M4 chip has been benchmarked using tools like Cinebench R23 and GeekBench v6, where it shows higher scores in both single-core and multi-core tests compared to its predecessors. The M4's efficiency in various computational tasks is showcased through Passmark CPU benchmarks, which highlight its superior computational power. Geekbench results further indicate that the M4 shows a 10% improvement over the M3 in machine learning capabilities.

  • 5-4. Efficiency scores

  • The Apple M4 chip demonstrates improved efficiency over its predecessors due to its second-generation 3nm manufacturing process. Efficiency in power consumption is subtly enhanced in the M4 compared to the M3, leading to longer battery life and less heat generation. The increase in transistor count and memory bandwidth also contribute to better overall performance, ensuring that even intensive tasks are handled more efficiently.

  • 5-5. iGPU capabilities

  • The integrated GPU (iGPU) in the Apple M4 showcases significant enhancements, particularly for gaming and 3D-intensive tasks. With a 10-core GPU versus the M3's 8 or 10-core GPU options, the M4 provides better graphical performance and supports newer technologies such as mesh shading and hardware-accelerated ray tracing. This allows for smoother graphics rendering and a more immersive visual experience in applications that require high graphical fidelity.

6. Innovations in the M4 Chip

  • 6-1. New display engine details

  • The M4 features a new display engine enabling the stunning precision, color accuracy, and brightness uniformity of the Ultra Retina XDR display. This state-of-the-art display is created by combining the light of two OLED panels, which cumulate to hit Apple's brightness target of 1600 nits. The new display engine allows for this configuration and helps in driving both the tandem OLED panels and an external 6K display.

  • 6-2. Enhancements in machine learning accelerators

  • The M4 SoC includes enhanced next-generation ML accelerators in both the performance and efficiency CPU cores, as well as improvements to its neural engine. The M4’s 16-core Neural Engine is capable of 38 trillion operations per second (TOPS), significantly better than the 18 TOPS of the M3 and the 15.8 TOPS of the M2. These enhancements focus on enabling intensive machine learning and AI tasks on-device, such as real-time audio captions and object identification, which are more power-efficient and responsive.

  • 6-3. Dynamic Caching and mesh shading

  • The M4’s GPU architecture, which is similar to the M3's, includes features such as dynamic caching and mesh shading. Dynamic Caching is an Apple innovation that allocates local memory dynamically in hardware and in real time, increasing the average utilization of the GPU. Mesh shading is a next-generation means of geometry processing. Both of these features significantly improve performance in demanding professional apps and games.

  • 6-4. Ray tracing capabilities

  • The M4 GPU supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing, a feature carried over from the M3. This technology enables more realistic shadows and reflections in graphics-intensive applications, enhancing the visual experience and realism in supported games and apps.

7. Applications and Use Cases

  • 7-1. Pro Workflows in Multimedia Applications

  • The M4 chip brings substantial benefits for professional workflows in multimedia applications. The new 10-core GPU in the M4 architecture offers up to four times faster pro rendering performance compared to M2, as seen in apps like Octane. Pro rendering with the M4 enhances the performance of demanding pro apps and games, making it highly suitable for tasks such as working with complex orchestral music files in Logic Pro or adding highly demanding effects to 4K videos in LumaFusion.

  • 7-2. AI Capabilities in iPad Pro

  • Apple's M4 chip features its most powerful Neural Engine ever, capable of performing 38 trillion operations per second. This significantly improves AI performance, such as isolating subjects from backgrounds throughout 4K videos in Final Cut Pro with a single tap and creating musical notation in real time in StaffPad. These enhancements make the new iPad Pro exceptionally well-suited for applications leveraging AI, including real-time audio captions with Live Captions and object identification in videos and photos with Visual Look Up.

  • 7-3. Energy Efficiency and Battery Life Enhancements

  • The M4 chip has been built using a second-generation 3nm technology, resulting in significantly increased power efficiency. This allows the new iPad Pro to deliver all-day battery life, consuming less energy over its lifetime. Apple claims that the M4 can achieve M2 performance at half the power, which is attributed to the combination of process node improvements, architectural advancements, and increased CPU core count. Energy-efficient AI inference workloads also minimize battery impact while maintaining app responsiveness.

  • 7-4. Future Prospects in Other Apple Devices

  • Currently, the M4 chip is incorporated in the 2024 iPad Pro. While it's anticipated to extend to the Mac ecosystem, including models such as the 14-inch MacBook Pro, the MacBook Air, the iMac, and the Mac mini by late 2024 and spring 2025, it remains to be seen how the M4's performance will translate to these devices. The dedicated display engine and enhanced media engine of M4 are expected to bring significant performance improvements to these future devices, continuing Apple's trend of delivering state-of-the-art silicon technology.

8. Glossary

  • 8-1. Apple M4 Chip [Technology]

  • The Apple M4 Chip is the latest system-on-a-chip (SoC) designed by Apple. It boasts a 10-core GPU, 4 performance and 6 efficiency CPU cores, and a neural engine capable of 38 trillion operations per second. Built on a second-generation 3nm process, it offers improved performance, power efficiency, and advanced features like machine learning acceleration and ray tracing.

  • 8-2. Ultra Retina XDR display [Technology]

  • A high-resolution display introduced with the new iPad Pro, utilizing a tandem OLED configuration to achieve a brightness of up to 1600 nits. This advanced display necessitates a new display engine in the M4 chip, enabling precise color accuracy and brightness uniformity.

  • 8-3. Neural Engine [Technology]

  • A specialized processing unit within the M4 chip dedicated to accelerating AI tasks. The M4's neural engine is capable of performing 38 trillion operations per second, significantly enhancing the device's capabilities in machine learning and AI-driven applications.

9. Conclusion

  • The M4 chip represents a significant leap forward in Apple's silicon technology, offering substantial improvements in processing power, efficiency, and specific enhancements for AI and machine learning. With its introduction in the new iPad Pro, the potential for this chip in upcoming Apple devices is immense.

10. Source Documents