Teardown: Identifying Apple M1's distinct circuit blocks
I&#x27;m not sure what to make of that Neural Engine.  I was under the impression that most machine learning was using GPUs.  The M1 already has a large GPU, so I&#x27;m surprised that the chip developers decided that a dedicated neural processor was worthwhile, especially in the middle of those CPUs.<p>Also, what kinds of jobs is that neural engine for?  Presumably voice and face recognition to start with, but that doesn&#x27;t strike me as enough to justify that die space.  Good for research of course, but Apple seems to focus on what&#x27;s practical for everyday users.  I&#x27;ve seen stories about CPU designers wanting to use machine learning to manage system cache.  I wonder if the NPU will be involved in managing the workload of the M1 chip itself.