Qualcomm Employee: Apple's 64-Bit A7 Chip 'Hit Us In The Gut'

By Shadrack
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Grand Master

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I wouldn't say leading, as it would if ATM it were a meaningful advantage, like pointed above, 64 IS the future, but in 2-3 years. Heck we've barely transitioned into 64 bit on desktops.

 

It's the future now. 

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AWilliams87

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I wouldn't say leading, as it would if ATM it were a meaningful advantage, like pointed above, 64 IS the future, but in 2-3 years. Heck we've barely transitioned into 64 bit on desktops.

That statement doesn't even make sense. When the first HD televisions were introduce, you "wouldn't say" they were leading the way simply because no HD content were available at the time? You can't make HD content if they aren't TVs around to play them on. And it isn't a chicken a egg problem as stated earlier. The hardware has always come first. Resources are limited; It simply makes no financial sense to write and deploy software for hardware that isn't available. In Xcode, you couldn't even compile iOS apps into a 64 bit binary until recently anyway, even if you wanted to. The A7 will be the reason we'll soon see 64-bit computing become mainstream. That is a reason to say it is leading.

Grand Master

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Uh...where are you drawing that conclusion from?  The point is that the amount of memory doesn't matter.

Yes, you can use more than 3.5GB of memory with 64-bit, but that's only one of many advantages.

A major benefit is security.  

 

Educate yourself on why a 64-bit instruction set is very beneficial.  There's a lot of information out there.

 

4GB, not 3.5GB (It'll be 3.5GB if you have something like a 512MB graphics card, a 1GB one will give you 3GB usable, etc.)

 

And ASLR is useful, but it's not like 32bit can't do it, 64bit just makes it harder to brute force (Most times you'll break ASLR via other means)

Grand Master

FloatingFatMan

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The A7 will be the reason we'll soon see 64-bit computing become mainstream. That is a reason to say it is leading.

 

What a ridiculous thing to say...  A measely little mobile processor is NOT the 64bit evangelist you think it is. Intel and AMD are already there and have been for years; Microsoft are the ones making it mainstream as their OS is the market driver.

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snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member

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Uh...where are you drawing that conclusion from?  The point is that the amount of memory doesn't matter.

Yes, you can use more than 3.5GB of memory with 64-bit, but that's only one of many advantages.

A major benefit is security.  

 

Educate yourself on why a 64-bit instruction set is very beneficial.  There's a lot of information out there.

 

What is beneficial for security in ARM's A64 ISA? I know ARMv8 has crypto instructions but those are available in both the 32-bit and 64-bit variants.

Grand Master

The Evil Overlord

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This. If anyone argues so much about who does it first who does it right on here when it comes to Apple vs Android, it's me. Just like every release of an iDevice, how many Android devices have you seen try to follow a feature right after? HTC Fingerprint for example. Apple may not have done the fingerprint first, but they did it right which made others attempt to follow.

 

I don't want to turn this into another apple vs android debate, but apple has been a little lagging in some areas compared to others, why I don't know, but some features becoming available to apple phones, have been around since the '90's, anyone with an old Symbian Nokia could stand up and say, well we had video calling on my Nokia 6630, or some other thing, fingerprint scanners were available on Eurocom Panther laptops since win 7 launch.

 

I'm not an apple hater because I have an android phone, I'm actually not a fan of android neither, but I am glad to see technology advancing.

Having said that, I do wonder, how much 'tech' does one actually need in any smartphone? I've said this in the past, I just don't get the need to have full blown tablet computers with a speaker, a mic and a sim port. (A little hypocritical of me I'll admit due to having a smartphone myself, but for me 6630 was close to perfect, and if I admit it, the N8, <my opinion the best Nokia Symbian ever made> was more phone than I needed.

 

That being said, Good for Apple, these advancements can lead to great devices elsewhere as well, (kinda like the existence of the rpi or some portable medical equipment)

Grand Master

sanctified Veteran

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Some of you guys kept saying how Apple is useless because the hardware was never raising the bar. I never heard any Android fanatic saying that multicore and ram-heavy phones were unnecesary.

 

Now that Apple released a 64 bit phone (Which, by the way, has more advantages than 'using more ram', like better proc instruction sets) some of you are saying that it's overkill.

 

Make your mind. 

Grand Master

The Evil Overlord

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Some of you guys kept saying how Apple is useless because the hardware was never raising the bar. I never heard any Android fanatic saying that multicore and ram-heavy phones were unnecesary.

 

Now that Apple released a 64 bit phone (Which, by the way, has more advantages than 'using more ram', like better proc instruction sets) some of you are saying that it's overkill.

 

Make your mind. 

If you're referring to me, please note, I was trying to tiptoe carefully in what is a potential minefield that is the apple vs android debate, I do not consider myself in either camp because as soon as ANY smartphone manufacturer decides to revive Symbian, I'll jump ship there and then.

Grand Master

sanctified Veteran

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If you're referring to me, please note, I was trying to tiptoe carefully in what is a potential minefield that is the apple vs android debate, I do not consider myself in either camp because as soon as ANY smartphone manufacturer decides to revive Symbian, I'll jump ship there and then.

 

Actually I'm not referring to anyone. I did a general read without looking at names and came to my conclussion.

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snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member

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Some of you guys kept saying how Apple is useless because the hardware was never raising the bar. I never heard any Android fanatic saying that multicore and ram-heavy phones were unnecesary.

 

Now that Apple released a 64 bit phone (Which, by the way, has more advantages than 'using more ram', like better proc instruction sets) some of you are saying that it's overkill.

 

Make your mind. 

 

Well, in the defense of sane architecture, an ISA is mostly only as useful as the instructions you use or need. Throwing 64-bit instructions in is useless if you don't need the extended range provided by the numbers. The performance gains reported are most likely just the result of more registers being available and simply better scheduling as a result.

 

EDIT: anyone know if apple is bundling both 64-bit and 32-bit compiled codes in one executable like what is done for Osx (and should be done for windows...)?

Grand Master

sanctified Veteran

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Well, in the defense of sane architecture, an ISA is mostly only as useful as the instructions you use or need. Throwing 64-bit instructions in is useless if you don't need the extended range provided by the numbers. The performance gains reported are most likely just the result of more registers being available and simply better scheduling as a result.

 

EDIT: anyone know if apple is bundling both 64-bit and 32-bit compiled codes in one executable like what is done for Osx (and should be done for windows...)?

 

Without the source you can't tell for sure if ios7 is using or not using the extra instructions. But if what I got from the Infinity Blade III presentation video is correct then indeed there are both 32/64 compilations in one package and the ios installed on the 5s uses the extended instruction set.

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snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member

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Without the source you can't tell for sure if ios7 is using or not using the extra instructions. But if what I got from the Infinity Blade III presentation video is correct then indeed there are both 32/64 compilations in one package and the ios installed on the 5s uses the extended instruction set.

 

Did they say either universal or fat binary? Those are the two terms I know that mean that. I'd imagine they would be doing it because it is a particularly good idea.

Grand Master

sanctified Veteran

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Did they say either universal or fat binary? Those are the two terms I know that mean that. I'd imagine they would be doing it because it is a particularly good idea.

 Neither. Let me look for the video, but they said something a long the lines of "specific builds". I tend to believe it since the video was to show how better the 5s ran Infinity Blade III, something impossible if the os is not accessing the extended instruction set that the game is using.

Grand Master

sanctified Veteran

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Ummm, isn't the A7 chip based off of Qualcomm's technology?

 

As far as I know, it's all the contrary: The design was made by Apple with Samsung assistance and Samsung manufactured it.

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snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member

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Just wondered because many chip makers pay QUALCOMM royalties.

 

Nah, it is what sanctified said, Samsung manufactures their processors (well SoCs now). They used Cortex series chips for the 3 and 4 and standard samsung processors prior. They've never used qualcomm parts.

 

EDIT: looks like both the 5 and 5s use straight up apple designed processors, so they aren't licensed from anyone at all. The Cortex ones were licensed from ARM.

Grand Master

XerXis

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Uh...where are you drawing that conclusion from?  The point is that the amount of memory doesn't matter.

Yes, you can use more than 3.5GB of memory with 64-bit, but that's only one of many advantages.

A major benefit is security.  

 

Educate yourself on why a 64-bit instruction set is very beneficial.  There's a lot of information out there.

You're talking about the amd64 instruction set, which indeed added security measures. However, this is ARM we are talking about, you can't just assume that 64 bit ARM will have the same advantages as x86-64.

 

In fact, you educated one, can you tell me the differences between the ARM 32 and ARM 64 instruction sets?

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