Talk:Apple A12

M12

Does the A12 have an embedded M12 motion coprocessor like the A9, A10, and A11? Those had the M9, M10 and M11 (older A7 and A8 had external M7 and M8 motion coprocessors). The M12 does not appear with the A12 in the "Chip" section of the iPhone XS Tech Specs — compare to the iPhone X Tech Specs and iPhone 8 Tech Specs (archive) which show the A11 and M11 in the "Chip" section, the iPhone 7 Tech Specs (archive) which show the A10 and M10 in the "Chip" section, etc. The archived versions show that while Apple has recently edited the description in the A10/A11 "Chip" sections to downplay the motion coprocessor, they continue to show the M10/M11. The "Chip" section for the A12 does not show an M12 at all.

It is WP:OR on my part, but I think that in the place of the M12 motion coprocessor Apple now has a feature that they are calling an "Always-on processor". I am not sure if this reflects an evolution in the functionality of the coprocessor, or simply a change to the name. In the most recent Apple event the CPU slide that in the past had mentioned the motion coprocessor instead listed "Always-on processor" (see this slide from AnandTech's article about the keynote). Apple didn't mention the M12 at all during the event, but also didn't say anything about this "Always-on processor". Apple does have a pair of patents about something they call an Always-On Processor (US20150362980A1 "Always-On Processor as a Coprocessor" and US9619377B2 "System on a chip with always-on processor..."). The only mentions on Apple's website is from their Machine Learning Journal, in particular Hey Siri: An On-device DNN-powered Voice Trigger for Apple’s Personal Assistant which says "To avoid running the main processor all day just to listen for the trigger phrase, the iPhone’s Always On Processor (AOP) (a small, low-power auxiliary processor, that is, the embedded Motion Coprocessor) has access to the microphone signal (on 6S and later). We use a small proportion of the AOP’s limited processing power to run a detector...". So it might be the case that the change in naming is simply to reflect the growing capabilities of this coprocessor away from just "motion" tasks. —RP88 ^(talk) 22:33, 23 September 2018 (UTC)

If I’m reading this right they were already referring to the M9 in the iPhone 6s as being an Always-on Processor. So it’s entirely possible the M12 does exist (since Schiller’s slide mentions an AoP in the A12), but generational improvements haven’t been interesting enough to draw attention to them. You’ll notice that even though Apple did include M10 and M11 in its iPhone tech-spec pages, Schiller didn’t mention them during the keynotes either. Zecanard (talk) 02:02, 24 September 2018 (UTC)

The M12 may exist, but we don't currently have a reliable source for its existence. The M10 and M11 appeared on-screen in the slides for the 2016 and 2017 iPhone events as well as in Apple's press releases for those events. None of that occurred for the M12. —RP88 ^(talk) 03:50, 24 September 2018 (UTC)