Apple Silicon Subsystems

These pages detail the specifics of a particular platform subsystem. They are loosely categorised by function.

Generalised overviews

• Introduction to Apple Silicon
• Accelerator Engines

Coprocessors and accelerators

• HW:AGX - Apple's PowerVR-derived tile-based deferred renderer
• HW:SEP - The Secure Enclave, Apple's crypto/biometrics/security engine

Platform control logic

• HW:AIC - Apple Interrupt Controller
• HW:WDT - Watchdog Timer
• HW:SMC - System Management Controller
• HW:ASC - Apple's Mailbox-like firmware interface

Platform initialisation and boot

• SW:Boot
• SW:MachO Boot Protocol
• HW:Memory map
• HW:SMP spin up
• FW:ADT (Apple Device Tree)
• SW:NVRAM

Application processors

• HW:ARM System Registers
• HW: SPRR and GXF
• HW:CPU debug registers
• HW:Apple Instructions

I/O

• HW:APCIe (Apple PCIe controller)
• HW:GPIO
• HW:Debug USB
• HW:USB PD
• SW:Storage

Peripherals

• HW:Camera - Broadcom camera and ISP