Decoding Apple’s Ecosystem of Silicon Names
Apple’s new M1 series chip joins an increasingly growing list of Apple-designed silicon. But besides feeling like a New York subway map, what do all of these letters mean?
It’s an exciting time for Apple with the recent launch of their new M1 SoC (System on a Chip). This new chip represents a massive milestone for the company and their Mac platform, signaling their transition away from Intel and towards their custom-designed silicon. But this isn’t the first time Apple has designed their chips. In fact, they’ve been doing it for quite a while now, and the new M series joins a pretty extensive list of other Apple-designed silicon.
All in all, Apple has seven distinctly different types of processors, all with unique functions and applications. I thought it would be interesting to take a step back and look at the totality of Apple’s silicon ecosystem, from a branding and marketing standpoint, in the hope of giving others an idea of where Apple may head next.
A Series
The “A” series is a family of chips designed for Apple’s iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and Apple TV hardware.
Apple’s first in-house designed silicon was the A4 chip, introduced in 2010 in Apple’s first-generation iPad and iPhone 4. Over the years, newer generations of the A chip have given us names like A5, A6, A7, etc.
There have been a couple of unique variants to this naming convention, however. Starting with the A5X in 2012, the X-variants were mostly aimed at iPads, and are considered higher-performing variants of the non-X variants.
In 2016, Apple introduced their first quad-core chip, the A10 Fusion. This chip was a successor to Apple’s A9 chip, featuring both high and low-performance cores. Another variant, the A10X Fusion, was designed for several generations of iPad Pros and the Apple TV 4K.
Starting in 2017, Apple began introducing chips with the name ‘Bionic,’ referring to the inclusion of Apple’s Neural Engine, a dedicated piece of neural networking hardware that can easily handle machine learning-like tasks and offload those from the primary CPU and GPU.
This year, Apple introduced yet another variant, the A12Z, which features an 8-core GPU, one more than the A12X chip. Again, similar to other X-variants, this chip was primarily aimed at iPad Pros and was also the chip used as a prototype for Apple’s Mac transition to Apple Silicon.
The most recent A-series chip is the A14 Bionic, which was recently released with the iPhone 12.
S Series
The “S” series is a family of chips designed for Apple Watch. These are called Systems in a Package (SiP), which is different than System on a Chip (SoC). A SiP is similar to an SoC but not as tightly integrated nor on a single semiconductor die.
These chips have been consistently named, with each successive generation increasing in number. The only notable exception is the S1P variant, which was used in the Apple Watch Series 1.
I’m not entirely sure, but my best guess is that the ‘S’ series naming convention conveniently maps to the ‘Series’ convention used with Apple Watch. Apple Watch is the only product that refers to each generation as ‘Series X.’
T Series
The “T” series is Apple’s security-focused SoC. When Apple introduced TouchID in iPhone 5s, the A7 SoC featured a secure enclave for storing fingerprint data. When Apple brought this tech to the Mac, they created a chip explicitly focused on the task — the T1. This chip also manages access to the microphone and FaceTime cameras to secure them from hacking.
The most recent version, the T2, provides even more security, including things like on-the-fly encryption and decryption of a Mac’s solid-state drive.
W Series
Apple’s “W” series is a family of SoCs focusing on wireless connectivity, including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. These chips are yet another example of the benefits of having custom-designed silicon. The W series chips allow for faster connectivity and more power efficiency in Apple’s wearable devices, like Apple Watch and AirPods.
H Series
The “H” series chip, which is currently in its first generation, borrows and improves upon the tech in Apple’s W1 chip and is geared towards Apple’s headphones, including the most recent generations of AirPods and Beats headphones. This chip allows for hands-free ‘Hey Siri’ commands.
U Series
Apple’s “U” series is a newer series of dedicated chips, explicitly focused around ultra-wideband technology. This chip is featured in iPhone 11, iPhone 12, and the Apple Watch Series 6. The U1 chip helps a device understand its spatial awareness, especially in proximity to other U1 chips. Though Apple’s marketed this chip currently for improving the experience for things like AirDrop or location tracking, this chip’s full potential isn’t known at the moment. However, it seems like this chip holds a tremendous amount of promise.
M Series
The week’s biggest news is the introduction of Apple’s new “M” series, which is their first SoC in-house designed for the Mac.
But surprisingly, this isn’t the first use of the M designation. Apple previously used the M designation for their motion coprocessors, which debuted in 2013 as the M7 alongside Apple’s A7 in the iPhone 5s. These dedicated chips are notable for handling all of the sensor data from your device, offloading this from the primary CPU, and thus being more power-efficient.
However, as of this week, the M series designation now refers to Apple’s latest silicon achievement — a new family of SoCs for the Mac. The first chip in the series, M1, is an 8-core 5-nanometer chip, which launches next week in the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini. It also appears that the “T” chips will become redundant on the Mac, and are being eliminated as the tech is being integrated directly within the “M” chips.
It’ll be interesting to see how this naming convention plays out as Apple introduces newer and more powerful variants and generations. Will we have an M1 Pro? Or M1X? And will they increase in number every year?
On The Topic of Numbers…
And on the topic of numbers, at what point do these numbers get too high that they start to become meaningless? An A23 chip? Or an M18 chip? Or will Apple pivot and go a different direction altogether?
Another interesting aspect of this transition for the Mac is that we no longer have clock speeds. Apple has successfully marketed millions of iPhones and iPads without ever referring to their clock speed, a testament both to their marketing prowess but also to the idea that maybe most consumers don’t really care about things like that anymore. Intel has been dealing with marketing clock speeds for years now, as successive generations of processors have gotten faster and more efficient but haven’t necessarily increased substantially in clock speed. It’s just not the best unit of measurement for comparison. And by that same token, at one point to these naming conventions also fall into that predicament? I don’t know, honestly. What’s your take?
Concluding Thoughts
Apple’s entire ecosystem of silicon and other hardware tech is nothing short of impressive. It wasn’t until I started to put this together that I finally started seeing Apple as something other than just an excellent hardware and software company. They’re also a chip company. And while they may not rival competitors such as Intel in terms of silicon volume, their vast array of custom-designed tech and sheer brilliance at engineering is game-changing. Hats off to Apple and Johny Srouji, who leads their silicon design.
Authors Note: My goal with this piece is to look high level across Apple’s entire ecosystem of silicon. There are probably exceptions and other variants that I might have missed in my research. Thank you for bearing with me!
