Why Apple software-locks the cores of its chips

The discussion surrounding the locking of the cores was heated in 2020, when Apple introduced the iPad Pro with the A12Z Bionic chip. The experts looked at this chipset and found that it is practically the same part that was found in the previous generation iPad Pro (2018) with the A12X Bionic chip, but it only offers one more graphics core. At first glance, it seemed that Apple deliberately locked this graphics core and presented its arrival two years later as a significant novelty.

This discussion was then followed up by the first Macs with the M1 chip. While the 13″ MacBook Pro (2020) and Mac mini (2020) offered a chip with an 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU, the MacBook Air started with a variant with an 8-core CPU but only a 7-core GPU. But why? Of course, a core better version was available for an additional fee. So is Apple intentionally locking these cores in its chips, or is there a deeper meaning?

This is how Apple presented the M1 chip

mpv-shot0076

mpv-shot0077

mpv-shot0078

mpv-shot0079

mpv-shot0080

mpv-shot0081

mpv-shot0082

mpv-shot0083

mpv-shot0084

mpv-shot0085

mpv-shot0086

Core binning to avoid waste

In fact, this is a very common practice that even the competition relies on, but it is not so visible. This is because in chip manufacturing, it is somewhat common that some problem occurs, due to which the last core cannot be successfully completed. But since Apple relies on a System on a Chip, or SoC, on which the processor, graphics process, unified memory and other components are connected, this shortcoming would make it quite expensive, and above all unnecessary, if the chips had to be thrown away because of such a minor error. Instead, manufacturers rely on so-called core binning. This is a specific designation for a situation where the final kernel fails, so it is only software locked. Thanks to this, components are not wasted, and yet a fully functional chipset looks into the device.

This is how Apple presented the deployment of the M1 chip in the iPad Pro (2021)

In fact, Apple is not fooling its customers, but it is trying to use components that would otherwise be doomed and only waste expensive material. As we have already mentioned above, at the same time, this is not completely unusual. We can see the same practice among competitors.