Apple's M1 chip is the fastest chip that Apple has ever released in a Mac based on single-core CPU benchmark scores, and it beats out many high-end Intel Macs when it comes to multi-core performance. Developer Erik Engheim recently shared a deep dive into the M1 chip, exploring the reasons why Apple's new processor is so much faster than the Intel chips that it replaces.
First and foremost, the M1 isn't a simple CPU. As Apple has explained, it's a System-on-a-Chip, which is a series of chips that are all housed together in one silicon package. The M1 houses an 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU (7-core in some MacBook Air models), unified memory, SSD controller, image signal processor, Secure Enclave, and tons more.
Intel and AMD also ship multiple microprocessors in a single package, but as Engheim describes, Apple has a leg up because rather than focusing on general purpose CPU cores like its competitors, Apple is focusing on specialized chips that handle specialized tasks.
In addition to the CPU (with high-performance and high-efficiency cores) and GPU, the M1 has a Neural Engine for machine learning tasks like voice recognition and camera processing, a built-in video decoder/encoder for power-efficient conversion of video files, the Secure Enclave to handle encryption, the Digital Signal Processor for handling mathematically intensive functions like decompressing music files, and the Image Processing Unit that speeds up tasks done by image processing apps.
Notably, there's also a new unified memory architecture that lets the CPU, GPU, and other cores exchange information between one another, and with unified memory, the CPU and GPU can access memory simultaneously rather than copying data between one area and another. Accessing the same pool of memory without the need for copying speeds up information exchange for faster overall performance.
All of these chips with specific purposes speed up specific tasks, leading to the improvements that people are seeing.
This is part of the reason why a lot of people working on images and video editing with the M1 Macs are seeing such speed improvements. A lot of the tasks they do, can run directly on specialized hardware. That is what allows a cheap M1 Mac Mini to encode a large video file, without breaking sweat while an expensive iMac has all its fans going full blast and still cannot keep up.
Specialized chips have been in use for years, but Apple is taking a "more radical shift towards this direction," as Engheim describes. Other Arm chip makers like AMD are taking a similar approach, but Intel and AMD rely on selling general purpose CPUs and for licensing reasons, PC manufacturers like Dell and HP are likely not able to design a full SoC in house like Apple is able to do.
Apple is able integrate hardware and software in a way that's just not possible for most other companies to replicate, which is always something that's given the iPhone and iPad an edge over other smartphones and tablets.
Sure Intel and AMD may simply begin to sell whole finished SoCs. But what are these to contain? PC makers may have different ideas of what they should contain. You potentially get a conflict between Intel, AMD, Microsoft and PC makers about what sort of specialized chips should be included because these will need software support.
Along with the benefits of an in-house designed System-on-a-Chip, Apple is also using Firestorm CPU cores in the M1 that are "genuinely fast" and able to execute more instructions in parallel through Out-of-Order execution, RISC architecture, and some specific optimizations Apple has implemented, which Engheim has an in-depth explanation of.
Engheim believes that Intel and AMD are in a tough spot because of the limitations of the CISC instruction set and their business models that don't make it easy to create end-to-end chip solutions for PC manufacturers.
Engheim's full article is well worth reading for those who are interested in how the M1 works and the technology that Apple has adopted to take a giant leap forward in computing performance.
"The potential was always there" for innovation in chip design, said Dr. David Patterson, co-creator of the open standard chip instructions known as RISC-V. "Maybe because of all the competition, we are starting to see some really interesting points in the design space being realized."
Tiernan Ray for ZDNet
A decade ago, an idea was born in a laboratory at the University of California at Berkeley to create a lingua franca for computer chips, a set of instructions that would be used by all chipmakers and owned by none.
It wasn't supposed to be an impressive new technology, it was merely supposed to get the industry on the same page, to simplify chip-making in order to move things forward.
But a funny thing has happened on the way to a global chip standard: RISC-V, as the Berkeley effort is known, has begun to produce some technical breakthroughs in chip design.
As just one example, a recent microprocessor design using RISC-V has a clock speed of 5 gigahertz, well above a recent, top-of-the-line Intel Xeon server chip, E7, running at 3.2 gigahertz. Yet the novel RISC-V chip burns just 1 watt of power at 1.1 volts, less than one percent of the power burned by the Intel Xeon.
The speed and power efficiency of the RISC-V part also top the specs for Exynos 4, a top-of-the line part made by Samsung Electronics for its smartphones, based on the computing core provided by ARM Holdings Plc, Intel's chief rival.
"It's kind of amazing," said David Patterson, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who helped create RISC-V, in an interview with ZDNet, describing his impression of a demo he was given of the chip recently. "I think IBM mainframes have a 5-gigahertz product that's liquid-cooled, and takes 100 watts" to run.
"I've also heard some impressive numbers around people doing FPGAs, around 600 megahertz," said Patterson, referring to re-programmable chips. "For a soft core, that seems pretty fast."
Patterson is surprised, he said, that technological innovation is cropping up. "The potential was always there" for innovation, he said, but that wasn't the main expectation when he and a fellow Berkeley professor, Krste Asanović, first wrote their manifesto for RISC-V, back in 2011.
"One thing I thought would happen is, because it's open, we would see all this competition," he reflected.
"Maybe because of all the competition, we are starting to see some really interesting points in the design space being realized," said Patterson, who also serves as a distinguished engineer at Google.
The new 5-gigahertz processor, which is merely a prototype, is not the creation of a garage startup. It was made by Micro Magic Inc., a Silicon Valley intellectual property designer for chips that has been consulting to all the big Valley firms for twenty-five years. The ability of a small but seasoned crew of chip designers to accomplish such a task suggests a design renaissance that could be on the horizon.
Not only is the chip faster at lower power, it scores higher than the Intel and the Samsung chips on a benchmark score, called CoreMark, of raw CPU performance, as recorded by the Embedded Benchmark Microprocessor Consortium. The RISC-V chip has a score of 13,000, more than double the per-core performance score of the ARM-based Exynos. While the Intel Xeon is nominally higher per core, at 26,009, the Xeon part takes many more threads of execution, 120, to reach that performance.
Dr. Andy Huang, a longtime chip industry executive, works as the business liaison for Micro Magic. He explained to ZDNet in an interview by phone that the breakthrough lies in the way the CPU and memory interact. The two founders of Micro Magic, Mark Santoro and Lee Tavrow, had patented in the early nineties an SRAM computer-memory chip that was the fastest such memory ever invented.
The RISC-V prototype eliminates a bottleneck that can exist with fast memory and slower chips.
"If memory is running at five gigahertz and logic is running at one gigahertz, who's the bottleneck?" Huang teased, without disclosing details.
The point, says Huang, is that because RISC-V is open, unlike CISC, the complex instruction-set architecture of Intel's chips, or even the version of RISC that's in ARM chips, things can be done in chip design to resolve that bottleneck in ways not possible if the chip's instructions were locked down.
The analogy he used is Android versus iOS.
"I ask my son why he prefers Samsung [smartphones] to Apple, and he says it's because if he wants something changed, he can just ask one of his programming friends to do it for him, because Android is open, unlike iOS," said Huang.
"This is why we attribute all of our success to Dr. Patterson," said Huang. "He created the most efficient, the most elegant RISC architecture, by far."
"We should call him Saint Patterson," said Huang.
It's not merely the ability to tinker with the instruction set that makes possible the kind of part that Micro Magic has shown. There is an economic element that comes into play.
Unlike CISC or ARM's instruction set, which each have over 1,000 instructions, RISC-V has fewer than one hundred instructions, Dr. Huang emphasized.
Because of the simplicity of the instruction set of RISC-V, Micro Magic was able to have its chip produced using a standard silicon wafer with no special tweaking. That makes it possible to use what is called a shuttle run, where the chip is grouped together in the manufacturing process with other people's chips, on the same wafer. That can be vastly cheaper because the wafer's cost is shared among so many parties.
"People talk about $100 million to do a custom ASIC," observed Patterson, meaning, a chip that is tuned for a particular application. "Well, they did not spend a hundred million dollars to do that," said Patterson of Micro Magic's effort.
Although not emphasized by Patterson nor by Huang, there is second element at play. It is a lot easier to use a shuttle run when you don't have the overhead of paying for an ARM license, which then has to be amortized across many parts.
In a sense, then, RISC-V can potentially promote the micro-batch approach seen in a lot of modern product lines, from breweries to cheese to clothing.
The question of economics is a provocative one considering that Nvidia, one of the biggest chip makers in the world, is in the process of buying ARM for $40 billion. That sale would put Nvidia in a position to reap the royalty stream from ARM's intellectual property, and to dictate the roadmap of development for the world's most widely used chip instructions.
But the move obviously presents a new opportunity for alternatives. Patterson, asked about the deal, is circumspect. Nvidia is a member of the RISC-V ecosystem and has endorsed the technology whole-heartedly.
"I think people have tended to think of RISC-V often as just an academic idea," Patterson told ZDNet. "And then, when it's demonstrated that proprietary instruction sets can be bought and sold, that becomes another argument for an open architecture."
Micro Magic's Huang says he has had inbound approaches from tech giants since Micro Magic posted its brief chip announcement.
"I have received an email from two of the four trillion-dollar, publicly listed companies already," said Huang, without disclosing names.
Huang offered hypothetical scenarios in which the chip could be used by Apple or Google to make breakthroughs in energy consumption.
"Google already owns the mobile open-source software Android, imagine the benefit to all mobile customers if they would also own the most power-efficient, highest-performance, open-source RISC core," Huang told ZDNet.
"Imagine the newest Apple Watch not having to be recharged overnight," is another possibility Huang offered.
With or without such mega-deals, Micro Magic, said Huang, hopes to get its RISC-V intellectual property into more and more designs in order to make a substantial dent in the the world's electricity consumption.
"Our intention with this IP is to help the world, help the PC, the laptop world, the tablet world, the mobile phone world, the wearables, the gaming, the electric car, and the IoT — you name it, everything, our goal is to contribute to reducing the carbon output of the world by half."
One prototype CPU does not a revolution make. Comparisons to actual shipping product by Intel and others leaves out the fact that a lot more parts are required to make a finished chip design.
That is where the ecosystem of companies around RISC-V becomes important. The number of announced companies saying they're going with RISC-V is small but growing.
"All the products you can think of, all the way up to data center, there are people thinking very seriously about RISC-V now," said Patterson.
"There is a sense we have turned the corner," he said, "from, Why would I ever use RISC-V" a few years ago, "to, Why wouldn't I use RISC-V?"
Prominent among the ecosystem parties are SiFive, a Silicon Valley startup that has for several years been developing chip intellectual property exclusively based on RISC-V. In August, the company started a business unit dedicated to producing custom chips for a variety of applications including AI and edge computing, known as OpenFive. Patterson's collaborator, Professor Asanović, is chief architect for SiFive.
Another is Andes Technology of Taiwan, a maker of embedded processors, which has over the years collectively sold billions of CPU designs to makers of electronics products.
Both SiFive and Andes Technology last month presented new chip designs for AI using RISC-V at a prominent chip technology conference, the Linley Fall Processor Conference.
SiFive told ZDNet it now has over 200 design wins with more than 80 companies, including six of the top ten semiconductor makers. "With design wins in FADU, Huami, Qualcomm, Samsung, and Synaptics, SiFive has tens of millions of cores shipping currently," SiFive told ZDNet.
Both Seagate Technology and Western Digital, large makers of disk drives, are sponsors of next month's RISC-V Summit, the third annual technology gathering of the ecosystem. That event is sponsored by the RISC-V International Association, a non-profit corporation that now represents over 750 parties working to advance the standard, including Chinese smartphone vendor Huawei, chip makers Xilinx and Qualcomm, and IBM. Asanović is chair of the group, and Patterson is vice-chair.
No matter how successful RISC-V proves, however, the world may never know the full extent of its usage. That is because while ARM and other commercial technology providers make their licensees sign documents, no one using RISC-V has to disclose usage.
RISC-V International asks vendors to voluntarily disclose usage, but does not compel such disclosure.
For that reason, "It'll be hard to see concrete evidence" of the extent of RISC-V usage, says Patterson.
Nevertheless, evidence of technological progress in a part like Micro Magic's suggests to Patterson and others that the impact of RISC-V could ultimately be large.
Recently, Patterson conducted a series of one-on-one interviews with his collaborators, via video, to produce a virtual celebration for the tenth anniversary of RISC-V's creation.
One collaborator offered a striking perspective, Patterson told ZDNet.
"In five or ten years, RISC-V could be the most important instruction set" in the world, Patterson recalled the individual saying.
"On one hand, it sounds crazy," he said, "but it's not impossible."
Windows 10 on ARM actually runs faster – a lot faster – on Apple’s new M1 ARM-based chip than it does on Microsoft’s rival SQ2 ARM CPU which powers the Surface Pro X.
This feat was achieved by developer Alexander Graf (as spotted by Notebookcheck), who tweeted at length about the results, and some Geekbench 5 results were provided (by other Twitter denizens) to illustrate the difference between the Apple and Microsoft ARM processors.
Who said Windows wouldn't run well on #AppleSilicon? It's pretty snappy here 😁. #QEMU patches for reference: https://t.co/qLQpZgBIqI pic.twitter.com/G1Usx4TcvLNovember 26, 2020
Graf notes that he used virtualization (so this wasn’t emulation) via QEMU (plus some patches) to get Windows 10 on ARM running on the M1 chip. Graf said: “It’s native ARM. Running the Windows ARM64 Insider Preview virtualized through Hypervisor framework. No emulation involved.”
Using this setup, Apple’s M1 managed to hit around 1,300 in single-core on Geekbench 5, and about 5,400 or so in multi-core. Microsoft’s Surface Pro X, on the other hand, pitches in at about 800 and 3,000 respectively, so it’s not just a bit slower, but a lot slower at running Microsoft’s own OS here.
M1 magic
Obviously that’s a tad embarrassing for Microsoft, but then the M1 is a cutting-edge piece of silicon, and perhaps more to the point, the results underline this, and how far forward Apple has pushed with this chip which powers its new MacBooks (both Air and Pro, plus let’s not forget about the revamped Mac mini PC).
We’ve been very impressed with the performance of Apple’s new hardware ourselves, and indeed the MacBook Air (M1, 2020) took the top spot on our list of best laptops upon its release – it’s that good.
The M1 machines use Rosetta 2 tech to effectively translate applications written for Intel chips (in existing MacBooks) so they can run on the new ARM hardware, and this works very well. In our review of the new Air, we tried both older and new apps coded for Intel CPUs, and they worked fine running on the M1 with no noticeable difference in performance levels.
Remember also that the successor to the M1, which could be called the M1X, is purportedly already in the pipeline too...
Deepening trade tensions between the United States and China has strained American companies' ability to operate in the East Asian country and limited Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies' ability to secure semiconductors manufactured by the latest generation of chip fabrication processes.
A tough stance by the American government has also sped up efforts by the Chinese government to decrease its reliance in key manufacturing sectors, including chip fabrication, on U.S.-source technology; efforts that have so far resulted in Chinese firms raising $38 billion capital according to estimates by S&P Global Market Intelligence, and veteran American chip design tooling engineers and executives leaving for China either to start new companies or join existing ones.
A fresh report from GlobalData points out that despite the U.S. chip ban, Chinese efforts to secure a lead globally in manufacturing products that sit at the heart of every tech device have only sped up. In fact, the details suggest that in addition to speeding up research and development efforts and investments for developing a strong local fabrication industry, the country will also leverage its geopolitical investment strategies to quantitatively secure data to create a strong artificial intelligence sector as well.
These efforts, which will also target areas including fifth-and-sixth generation cellular networks (5G and 6G), data centers, artificial intelligence, cloud supercomputing and quantum computing and Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, are backed by a $1.4 trillion state-backed research and development fund that aims to remove the country's American dependency.
U.S. Chip Ban Speeds Up Chinese Efforts At Developing Home Grown Semiconductor Industry
Owing to the highly complex process of printing minute circuits on a piece of silicon, manufacturing chips involves a large supporting industry in addition to traditional fabrication companies such as the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and Intel Corportioon. This industry provides the manufacturers with materials such as chemicals that clean the silicon wafers multiple times during the manufacturing process, photoresist elements that form the material that is transformed into circuits through lithography and 'masks' that form the design basis of the final integrated circuit.
So while the latest lithography machines, that use ultraviolet light to reduce circuit size over their predecessors, are subject to U.S. sanctions owing to American-source technology being present, the supporting industries are not limited to such an extent.
At this front, a host of Chinese firms are already operating with companies such as Beijing E-Town Semiconductor Technology, Shenyang Kingsemi and AdvancedMicro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. China target fabrications segments such as those involving the heating of the silicon (laser annealing) to change its form after its electrical conductivity has been altered, involving glue development and covering the final process in fabrication, 'etching', which transforms previously deposited materials into the circuits.
The process of manufacturing a chip is simplified. Dry etching is shown in the fifth step, where previously deposited material is removed, often through plasma lasers. Image: Hitachi High-Tech Global
In addition to manufacturing, tools that are used to design the billions of circuits that form the backbone of today's chips are also the focus of the Chinese government. While Chinese companies, Cellixsoft, Primaruis and Empyrean Software have been operating for more than a decade, development in the design segment has picked up recently.
This resulted from American sanctions against Huawei that prohibited the company from accessing design tools using American-source technology. As a result, several new startups have sprung up, according to Nikkei. Three of these, X-Epic, Shanghai Heijan and Advanced Manufacturing EDA Co., (Amedac) are either founded by former employees of the Chinese division of American EDA company Synopsys or consists of senior officials formerly belonging to Synopsys China or Cadence Design Systems. Inc, another American software company. Synopsys also holds a 20% stake in Amedac, with the American firm's chairman of Chinese operations serving on Amedac's board of directors.
GlobalData analyst Danyaal Rashid also believes that currently, China is facing a shortage of 400,000 experts in semiconductor fabrication. This statement reflects concerns that are already present within the Chinese government, as the country's cabinet promised more funding for related fields in university degrees in July this year. This also mirrors a shift towards academic talent by Huawei, who is paying up to $300,000 annually to qualified researchers.
Yet even as China steps up its efforts to remain globally competitive in the semiconductor arena, its rivals are looking to the future. TSMC, which supplies tech bigwigs such as Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) and NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ:NVDA)with chips, is expected to capture 60% of the advanced process node market by 2021 according to estimates by research firm TrendForce. American sanctions against Huawei have affected TSMC's production capacity for the latest 5nm manufacturing process, with TrendForce believing that roughly 10% to 15% of TSMC's capacity for 5nm will be left unused by the end of this year.
TrendForce goes on to state that this shortage will continue throughout 2021, with orders from Qualcomm Incorporated (NASDAQ:QCOM), NVIDIA, AMD, MediaTek and most importantly Intel Corporation (NASDAQ:INTC)expected to compel TSMC to expand its 5nm production capacity as the year ends and 2022 follows. During this time Apple will have moved forward to the 4nm node, which is based on the same design rules as 5nm for its A16 system-on-chip for the iPhone.
LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The processed potatoes market is poised to grow by USD 37.74 bn during 2020-2024, progressing at a CAGR of over 5% during the forecast period.
Worried about the impact of COVID-19 on your Business? Here is an Exclusive report talking about Market scenarios, Estimates, the impact of lockdown, and Customer Behaviour.
The report on the processed potatoes market provides a holistic update, market size and forecast, trends, growth drivers, and challenges, as well as vendor analysis.
The report offers an up-to-date analysis regarding the current global market scenario and the overall market environment. The market is driven by growth and expansion of the organized retail sector.
The processed potatoes market analysis includes product segment, end-user segment, distribution channel segment and geography landscape. This study identifies the growing focus on expanding production capabilities as one of the prime reasons driving the processed potatoes market growth during the next few years.
This report presents a detailed picture of the market by the way of study, synthesis, and summation of data from multiple sources by an analysis of key parameters.
The processed potatoes market covers the following areas:
Gluten-free Food Market by Product, Distribution Channel, and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2020-2024- The gluten-free food market size has the potential to grow by USD 3.19 billion during 2020-2024, and the market’s growth momentum will accelerate during the forecast period. To get extensive research insights: Click and get FREE sample report in minutes
Hemp-based Foods Market by Product and Geography - Forecast and Analysis 2020-2024- The hemp-based foods market size has the potential to grow by USD 364.98 million during 2020-2024, and the market’s growth momentum will accelerate during the forecast period. To get extensive research insights: Click and get FREE sample report in minutes
Key Topics Covered:
Executive Summary
Market Overview
Market Landscape
Market ecosystem
Value chain analysis
Market Sizing
Market definition
Market segment analysis
Market size 2019
Market outlook: Forecast for 2019 - 2024
Five Forces Analysis
Bargaining power of buyers
Bargaining power of suppliers
Threat of new entrants
Threat of substitutes
Threat of rivalry
Market condition
Market Segmentation by Product
Market segments
Comparison by Product
Potato chips - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
Potato flakes - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
Potato starch - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
Frozen French fries - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
Others - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
Market opportunity by Product
Market Segmentation by End-user
Market segments
Comparison by End-user
Food service sector - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
Retail sector - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
Industrial sector - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
Market opportunity by End-user
Market Segmentation by Distribution channel
Market segments
Comparison by Distribution channel
Offline - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
Online - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
Market opportunity by Distribution channel
Customer landscape
Overview
Geographic Landscape
Geographic segmentation
Geographic comparison
Europe - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
North America - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
APAC - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
South America - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
MEA - Market size and forecast 2019-2024
Key leading countries
Market opportunity by geography
Drivers, Challenges, and Trends
Market drivers
Market challenges
Market trends
Vendor Landscape
Overview
Landscape disruption
Vendor Analysis
Vendors covered
Market positioning of vendors
Burts Potato Chips Ltd.
Calbee Inc.
Campbell Soup Co.
Cooperatie Koninklijke Cosun UA
Groupe Limagrain Holding
Kellogg Co.
Lamb Weston Holdings Inc.
McCain Foods Ltd.
PepsiCo Inc.
The Kraft Heinz Co.
Appendix
Scope of the report
Currency conversion rates for US$
Research methodology
List of abbreviations
Technavio suggests three forecast scenarios (optimistic, probable, and pessimistic) considering the impact of COVID-19. Technavio’s in-depth research has direct and indirect COVID-19 impacted market research reports.
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November 30, 2020 at 05:13PM
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Processed Potatoes Market 2020-2024- Featuring Burts Potato Chips Ltd., Calbee Inc., Among Others to Contribute to the Market Growth | Industry Analysis, Market Trends, Opportunities, and Forecast 2024 | Technavio - Business Wire
Learning how to make your own potato chips sounds like a daunting task. It’s not, but that’s part of the appeal. Everyone thinks it takes tremendous effort. First, there’s the matter of slicing potatoes paper-thin without losing a finger. Then there’s the whole frying-in-boiling-oil aspect. Make these from scratch without sustaining significant injuries and you’re a legend.
With a whole new wave of lockdowns starting, now is as good a time as any to master making chips. The only specialty kitchen tool you need is a mandolin, which you can get easily for around $20. Besides that, you need a heavy-bottomed pot or wok to fry in, or a deep fryer, if you have one. The rest is pretty low-impact, albeit a little time-consuming.
In the scheme of “foods you can make at home which are insanely cheap to just go out and buy,” chips are actually way easier than making your own fries. And the rewards are equally high — especially when you create distinct flavors via spices. Follow our recipe once and you’ll have this snack in your permanent repertoire to trot out any time you want to impress folks.
What you’ll need in the kitchen:
Mandolin
Wok or heavy-bottom pot for frying
Thermometer
Two baking sheets (or plates or cutting boards)
One large bowl
Kitchen towels (or paper towels)
Cooling rack (or paper towels)
Skimmer spoon (or spider)
Step 1: Prep The Potatoes
Zach Johnston
Ingredients:
Two Queen Anne potatoes
4 cups of tap water
1 cup of white vinegar
I’m using Queen Anne’s because that’s what I have in the kitchen at the moment. You can also use Yukon Golds. You want a potato that’s both not too starchy and not too waxy. That being said, if you want to experiment, have at it!
Method:
Zach Johnston
The first step is to wash your potatoes. I washed three but I ended up using only two.
Next, I added the cold water and vinegar to a large bowl. The vinegar is a key ingredient at this step. It helps to draw the starches out which then helps the chip get nice and crispy when it fries.
If you want to make salt and vinegar chips, use a 1:1 ratio of water to vinegar. Then you’ll just need to add salt once the chips are cooked.
I like to halve my potatoes. It just makes for easier slicing on the mandolin. They’re easier to handle and generally come out a little more even the whole way through.
I place my mandolin on its thinnest setting, balance it over the bowl, and start slicing. It takes less than a minute to slice through two potatoes.
Zach Johnston
I then place the bowl in the fridge for about 2-ish hours. I’ve let them rest for an hour before and they were fine. Some recipes say they should rest overnight but I’ve never had the patience for that.
After about two hours, I fetch the bowl from the fridge. I set up a kitchen towel-lined baking tray and layer the raw chips as close to a single layer as possible. I then use another towel to press down on the wet chips to draw out as much of the water as I can. You can do all of this with paper towels, by the way. You don’t have to get all the water out, just as much as you can without mushing the raw chips.
Zach Johnston
Step 2: Fry The Potato Chips
Zach Johnston
Ingredients:
1.5 liters/50-oz. Neutral Oil
Salt
Method:
Zach Johnston
I get my wok on the flame and pour in the bottle of oil. I’m using sunflower oil but you can use peanut or canola, too.
Once the oil has reached 350f/175c, we’re ready to fry.
I gently drop the raw chips into the oil using the skimmer spoon about 15 to 20 at a time. You want to make a full layer but avoid complete overlap.
I use the skimmer to keep the potato chips moving around the oil. Industrial potato chip friers use metal paddles for this. The point is to keep them moving so they don’t stick or burn. There’s a very narrow window from them being done to crisp to burnt, so you need to stay focused.
The sweet spot for removing the chips from the oil is then the edges just start to brown. Remove the chips to a wire rack for cooling and oil leeching. Hit them with salt immediately. If you want, you can go wild here with flavor. Our editor uses a mix of mustard powder, onion powder, and black pepper. Paprika always works well, too.
Once seasoned, the chips will continue to brown on the rack until they’re golden. I end up making three batches — taking around 15 minutes in total.
Step 3: Serve
Zach Johnston
Once cooled, I transferred the chips to a basket for munching. Truth be told, I was snacking on these chips the whole time I was frying them too. They were freaking delicious. Imagine a chip that’s thinner than a Kettle Chip but with more heft than your average industrial Lay’s.
It’s just the right amount of chip and it nails that perfect balance of crunch and salt. Full disclosure, I ate the whole basket for my lunch. I regret nothing.
“Did you ever notice that with the exception of salt and vinegar, potato chips don’t taste anything like the flavours they’re named for?”
Buck, having chewed through what was left of the garden, was now rummaging through our kitchen cupboards with his hooves, looking for a snack.
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“Sour cream and onion. Bacon and cheddar. Ketchup. Barbecue. Why not just call them Chemical Aftertaste?”
I tried to ignore him.
“The Brits used to have hedgehog-flavoured chips, except they call them crisps,” he continued, a stray bag of candied ginger dangling from one antler. “How would anyone know what a hedgehog tastes like? Still, it beats their cooking.”
As someone raised on traditional Scots-English fare (sample recipe: cook until perfect, then boil till grey) I couldn’t let this last comment pass. I wheeled on Buck: “What do you know about flavour, you car-licking freak?”
He winced. “That wasn’t very Canadian of you.”
I hung my head, chastened. Buck was right, no need to be mean. Glancing in the mirror, I saw a B.C. Ferries wear-a-mask poster staring back.
I was right about ungulates and automobiles, though. This week, both CNN and the New York Times ran stories after discovering that officials in Jasper National Park had erected roadside signs reading “Do not let moose lick your car.”
It seems ol’ Bullwinkle finds caked-on road salt irresistible and has taken to tonguing the vehicles of those who pull over to take his picture. U.S. media thought the signage hilarious, in a quaintly Canadian kind of way.
That’s how a lot of Americans see us: Quaint. Or polite. Sensible. Decent if a bit dull, like a northern Ned Flanders.
“You are the kindest country in the world,” Robin Williams once said. “You are like a really nice apartment over a meth lab.” Another U.S. comedian called Canada the designated driver of North America. Some Americans idealize Canadians in the same way that cycling advocates elevate Copenhagen or Amsterdam. It’s not the worst stereotype to have.
But is it accurate? Not always, though we’re approaching the time of year when, traditionally, Canadians actually live up to their image. At Christmas, we all turn into a Jimmy Stewart movie, holding doors, smiling at strangers and shovelling neighbours’ driveways (even when it doesn’t snow, just to make a point). The driver who usually won’t let you merge, who grimly hangs onto the back bumper of the car in front like it’s the last chopper out of Saigon, graciously makes way.
“Everyone’s being so nice,” we say. “Why can’t it be like this all the time?”
Except even the seasonal surge seems in doubt this year — or, at least, that’s what some high-profile incidents would lead us to believe. There was an ugly scene in Dawson Creek where a 30-year-old man assaulted a Walmart employee who asked him to wear a mask. In Penticton, a woman was filmed spitting on a liquor store clerk and throwing his phone on the floor after being asked to do the same.
Here in Victoria, police arrested a guy for getting aggressive in the Market on Yates on Friday after he was asked to wear a mask. That came four days after VicPD ticketed a man who not only threatened staff at a Yates Street restaurant for trying to enforce COVID restrictions, but was part of a group that attempted to do a dine-and-dash. That echoed an August incident in which a group of diners, after being asked to abide by B.C.’s six-to-a-table limit, were abusive to young female servers at the Langford Mr. Mike’s.
This reveals another problem: It’s not just that these people balk at pandemic protocols, but that they think it’s OK to behave like thugs in doing so. Irrational people tend not to react rationally. It’s like racism: People who are unhinged enough to spew venom in public are also unhinged enough to pop you in the mouth when you call them on it.
And here’s yet another problem: When you string all these incidents together, it leaves the impression that such crackpottery is commonplace, that it has become the norm. It hasn’t. As pandemic-weary as we might be, most Canadians at least try to live up to what we like to think of as our image — good-hearted, reasonable, considerate, kind.
It can take a deliberate effort to do so. I have a friend who, whenever confronted with tragedy in the world, goes out of her way to do something good for someone, her small way of balancing the equation. Note that after the Mr. Mike’s incident, Premier John Horgan dropped by the Langford restaurant while on his way home (on his own birthday no less) to comfort the rattled staff.
Here at the Times Colonist, we’ve been stunned by the way donations to this year’s Christmas Fund have taken off.
COVID, Christmas, whatever. Can’t lick being Canadian.
Written by Nikhil Bhaskaran , Edited by Explained Desk | Updated: November 29, 2020 3:50:02 pm
The Apple M1 computer chip icon during a virtual product launch in Tiskilwa, Illinois, U.S., on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020. Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg
This month saw another revolution in computing. This time Apple has done it without its chief storyteller Steve Jobs, and that is maybe why the Apple Silicon M1 has not captured as much attention as some previous Apple breakthroughs. Which is why it is important to understand the significance of this new processor from Cupertino.
A CPU or microprocessor chip is the brain of any computer. Intel is the most popular CPU brand today, though the modern CPU — a combination of hardware and software — was introduced by IBM in 1964 as System/360. Introducing software instructions via Complex Instruction Set Computer (CISC) residing within the processor was the breakthrough then. In these early days, there were just the Japanese who had similar technology. In 1968, Japanese engineer Masatoshi Shima from Busicom began designing a CPU which was then taken over by Intel. The two companies jointly released the first CISC-based 4-bit Intel CPU in 1970, almost six years after IBM.
This triggered a race in the industry to create a new powerful brain CPU. IBM, Intel, Motorola, NEC, Zilog, Toshiba, Fujitsu and a few more got into this race, which was primarily limited to the Americans and Japanese. The Japanese were good with electronics hardware, manufacturing capabilities while the Americans had software and easy access to capital as their advantage.
There was a parallel race happening in RAM technology, the second most important component of a computer. But it had no software component and the advantage eventually went to the Japanese and the Koreans.
CISC was adopted and developed by Intel and that formed the basis of their X86 architecture, also used by AMD. In 1984, based on IBM’s work, Stanford introduced a new more efficient architecture Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC). In 1985, ARM (Acorn RISC Machine, later changed to Advanced Risc Machine), a very significant RISC-based architecture of the future was introduced by UK-based Acorn Computers Ltd.
ARM is significant for two reasons. First, it didn’t make CPUs itself, it only wrote the software for cpu and licensed it. So any company could make CPUs using their software. Second, it consumed very little power in comparison to Intel and CISC-based systems.
The Apple M1 chip was introduced during a virtual product launch on Nov. 10.
But these were the heydays of Silicon Valley, when US money and software power drove the computer industry. As Microsoft and Intel drove the PC revolution, they didn’t really care about carbon footprints or energy efficiency, Then it was all about packing more transistors into the CPU and reducing its size to get more speed at smaller sizes. Microsoft and Intel won the PC race hands down. Even Apple briefly experimented with ARM, but failed and ARM and RISC architecture eventually ended up on the backburner.
But times change, situations change. Steve Jobs walked into the annals of history when he introduced a small handheld computer-cum-phone, the iPhone, which turned everything on its head. All of a sudden, power efficiency and battery life of devices had become pivotal and this made Apple choose ARM. Smartphones have the same architecture of a computer — an all-important CPU with RAM, GPU and storage held together by an operating system.
The smartphone era triggered a new CPU race with everyone from Apple to Qualcomm, Samsung, Huawei and Hitachi licensing ARM core to make their own CPUs for smartphones. As the smartphone segment grew, ARM introduced more features making it a very powerful, yet power efficient architecture. There were parallel races on at the same time to create operating systems and apps that sync with these devices.
The M1 has four high-efficiency cores and two high-performance cores. (Image credit: Apple)
So, how is the Apple M1 revolutionary? M1 is the result of a reverse disruption with what has worked in smartphones being taken to the PC industry. M1 uses ARM and finally brings power efficiency into the PC domain which was long overdue. But how about performance? PCs need to do a lot more simultaneously compared to smartphones. A PC’s system performance depends not just depends on the CPU and data needs to be exchanged in the system between the CPU, GPU and RAM. All of these need to be optimised for the system’s overall optimal performance. The M1 has created an integrated chip with the CPU, GPU and RAM all packed into one with a tiny footprint using 5 nanometre fabrication. This tight integration in a smaller footprint makes it the most efficient chip available for consumers to date. On the contrary, Intel is still at a larger 14 nm size for the same. 📣 Express Explained is now on Telegram
Is there more to the M1?
These systems will also have Artificial Intelligence (AI) built in. AI mimics and creates human brain-like neural networks in these chips. This is what Apple calls Bionic processors, or Neural Processing Units (NPU) in more technical terms. The M1’s NPU makes it fully future ready while optimally packing the entire system into one chip. It is the first time in the history of computers that a mainstream processor has a full system on a single chip plus NPU for AI.
Is this the trend of the future? Will more and more chips get integrated and power efficient? Will digital transformation with AI also be driven by the marketing of big companies for speed. Will power efficiency and carbon footprint once again take a back seat? For the answers we will have to wait and see.
For the first time, Apple is using an ARM-powered processor to power its most popular Macs: a MacBook Air, a 13-inch MacBook Pro and a Mac Mini
This time though the race is between America and China. Chinese companies like Huawei, Bitmain and Phytium have their own integrated chips based on ARM. The Chinese are betting on efficiency at a lower price while American companies use their marketing power to mesmerise us with the latest possibilities.
Where does India stand in all this?
India has Shakti. Designed by IIT Madras, it is a CPU-only chip using RISC V, which is not the same RISC used by ARM. While the Apple M1 is on 5nm, Intel on 14 nm, the Shakti is on 22nm. So India still has a long way to go and it might be better for the country to focus on software and lead the race that be an also-ran in the hardware space.
Nikhil Bhaskaran is founder of startup Shunya OS, a built-in AI operating system for the next generation of devices to be launched in 2021. He is recognised among 40 global Innovators by ARM.
On the occasion of the SC20 conference, Cerebra Systems, in collaborations with researchers at the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL), showed that its latest single wafer-scale Cerebras CS-1 could outperform one of the fastest supercomputers in the U.S. by more than 200 times.
The Cerebras CS-1 is the world’s first wafer-scale computer system. It is 26 inches tall, fits in a standard data center rack, and is powered by a single Cerebras Wafer Scale Engine (WSE) chip. It is the world’s largest chip, measuring 72 square inches (462 cm2) and the largest square that can be cut from a 300 mm wafer. All processing, memory, and core-to-core communication occur on the wafer. In total, there are 1.2 trillion transistors in an area of 72 square inches.
The wafer holds almost 400,000 individual processor cores, each with its private memory and a network router. The cores form a square mesh. Each router connects to the routers of the four nearest cores in the mesh. The cores share nothing; they communicate via messages sent through the mesh.
A single wafer (rightmost) contains one CS-1 processor.
Cerebras CS-1 will be used especially for scientific research and science-related projects. The machine can solve a large, sparse, structured system of linear equations of the sort that arises in modeling physical phenomena – like fluid dynamics – using a finite-volume method on a regular three-dimensional mesh. Solving these equations is fundamental to such efforts as forecasting the weather; finding the best shape for an airplane’s wing; predicting the temperatures and the radiation levels in a nuclear power plant; modeling combustion in a coal-burning power plant; and making pictures of the layers of sedimentary rock in places likely to contain oil and gas.
To achieve such results, Cerebras says there are three factors that enable the computer‘s speed, including the CS-1’s memory performance, high bandwidth and low latency of the on-wafer communication fabric, and processor architecture optimized high-bandwidth computing.
In return, of course, you have a chip about 60 times the size of a large conventional chip like a CPU or GPU. It was built to provide a much-needed breakthrough in computer performance for deep learning.
The researchers used the CS-1 to do sparse linear algebra, typically used in computational physics and other scientific applications. Using the wafer, they achieved a performance more than 200 times faster than that of NETL’s Joule 2.0 supercomputer. NETL’s Joule is the 24th fastest supercomputer in the U.S. and 82nd fastest on a list of the world’s top 500 supercomputers. It uses Intel Xeon chips with 20 cores per chip for a total of 16,000 cores.
According to a reliable source, Apple is about to take things up a gear. Since arm-ing (sorry) its most recent MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Mini with the new technology (which was developed to replace the industry-standard Intel chips), Apple has reportedly been working on a next-level version – the M1X. Don't get too attached to the name, though, as it isn't yet confirmed.
Although the new MacBooks already boast vastly-improved and impressive battery life, according to this leak, things are about to get even better, with a source quoted as stating "if you think M1 is fast, you haven’t seen M1X". We bet the new chip will mean the new MacBooks will head straight to the top of our most powerful laptops guide.
Apple M1X:-12 Cores.- 8 performance cores.- 4 high efficiency cores.- Coming first on a MacBook Pro 16” unveiling as a press release.- According to a source who used a prototype, “if you think M1 is fast, you haven’t seen M1X”.-Name isn’t final though. pic.twitter.com/tpBhXpDCadNovember 22, 2020
Twitter account LeaksApplePro shared the hot news in the above tweet. Apparently Apple will be moving from an eight- to a 12-core configuration comprised of eight high-performance cores and four efficiency cores – explaining the jump in power and speed.
Alongside the leak above is another rumour from analyst Ming-Chi Kuo who, according to MacRumours, has given the release date as the "second or third quarter of 2021". The models in question could include redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models and a redesigned 24-inch iMac, plus a smaller version of the Mac Pro tower. Since the 16-inch MacBook Pro was last updated in 2019, it makes sense that 2021 would be the year of change for the flagship model.
Responses to the news of redesigned MacBooks with the M1X chip have included questions about the technology:
Definitely a discrete GPU option, if not even just dGPU. Apple may have to remove the GPU on the SOC to fit 12 CPU cores unless they want the chip to be really big.November 23, 2020
And another renowned leaker, l0vetodream, appears to hint that it won't only be Apple Silicon chips being shipped out with the new models – something that commenters find hard to believe.
It’s hard to believe that the redesigned MacBooks would use Intel chips given how hot they get. Do you mean the 16 inch prior to the redesign?November 25, 2020
In terms of other design elements, we wonder if Apple will listen to the wants of its user base. Included in the comments on MacRumours was more than one request for a touchscreen, plus passionate pleas for the removal of the touchbar.
While we can't be certain any of this will come to fruition, following the developing rumours of a new Apple product is almost as fun as the launch itself. We await the redesign with bated breath. Will the design be as controversial as this iPhone 13 design prospect?
If you can't wait until then to snap up a new laptop, head over to our Apple Black Friday and MacBook Black Friday post to find the very best deals around on MacBooks right now. Or see the deals we've found for you below.
Last month, China's chip customization solution provider Innosilicon announced that it had taped out and completed testing of a prototype chip based on the FinFET N+1 process of Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corporation (SMIC). This achievement marks a new step forward in China's homegrown chip development.
Amid major trade restrictions enforced by the United States, SMIC's new generation foundry node is said to be comparable to the 7nm process by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), the world's largest dedicated independent semiconductor foundry.
As China's largest chip foundry, SMIC will introduce its N+1 7nm node, marking a significant improvement over its current 14 nm production node, boasting a 20% increase in performance, power consumption reduction of 57%, a reduced logic area of 63%, and SoC (System on a Chip) area reduction of 55%, according to the company.
Moreover, the N+1 foundry node may enable SMIC to break its reliance on advanced Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines produced by Dutch microchip machine maker ASML, according to Liang Mengsong, co-CEO of SMIC. ASML is subject to U.S. export controls as its products contain American technology.
At the same time, China is working hard to develop its own lithography system.
The Suzhou Institute of Nano-tech and Nano-Bionics under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Sinano), along with the National Center for Nanoscience and Technology, recently announced a breakthrough in a new type of 5nm laser lithography technology. Experts believe it could lay the foundation for research into a self-developed advanced lithography machine.
The new technology has broken the traditional constraint in laser direct writing (LDW) with its ability to process at the nano level. In addition to ultra-high precision, the technology also demonstrates potential for mass production.
According to research results published in Nano Letters, a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal, the new LDW technology "exhibits an attractive capability of well-site control and mass production of 500,000 nanogap electrodes per hour," breaking the trade-off between resolution and throughput using nanofabrication techniques.
During the recent China International Import Expo (CIIE) in Shanghai, ASML, the global leader in lithography machines, showcased its deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography machines, sending out a strong signal for its capability and willingness to export the equipment to China.
Previously, ASML's CFO Roger Dassen has stated that the company can export DUV lithography machines to China without a U.S. license. The technology can typically produce chips down to the 7nm node.
On the side of materials, Nata Opto-electronic Materials in east China'sJiangsu province announced that it has established China's first ArF photoresist production line, which is used to transfer electronic circuit patterns to silicon crystals in the 7nm chip-making process.
Previously, photoresist materials produced in China could only be applied in the production of chips with standards of 436nm and 365nm.
As the world's largest semiconductor market, China has been spending aggressively in semiconductor investment, acquisition, and talent recruitment to bolster the industry by on-shoring chip manufacturing equal to those of the world's top foundries.
A report by Goldman Sachs on July 2 predicted that China may be capable of producing 7nm chips by 2023.
Thomas Friedman, a columnist for the New York Times, said during an online forum on Nov. 11 that China attempts to build an entire microchip supply chain from end to end, and will be no longer dependent on the U.S. technologies, according to the country's latest five-year plan.
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