It's completely baffling how a little meme like this, which is in no way accurate, survives and thrives not just at large but specifically on HN. Can we track the meme's point of origin?
It's not that far off-base, given that most people don't understand the difference between on-package, where a component is bundled with the CPU on the same chip, and on-die, where a feature is actually part of the same litho process as the CPU.
There's really no meme to trace here; just a popular misunderstanding of semiconductor terminology.
The RAM is on-chip but not on-die... but most people (even developers) don't know the difference between a chip, a die, and a core to begin with. It's a pretty minor error, although such errors are a good sign that someone either doesn't know what they're talking about or is careless with terminology.
Apple themselves are responsible for it, all their promotional material for the chip have included unified memory right alongside all the on-die modules
Speaking for myself, this is the first time I've heard of multiple modules in the same chip. Hearing about it now and knowing generally how dies[1] are manufactured and packaged into ICs it's an obvious thing to do, but yeah never crossed my mind.
It's cool, hey? How AMD (and others) are now doing their CPUs is a good example: there's often several CPU "chiplets" and then one IO chiplet on the same package. [0] is the first good search result.
Given what they've done with the M1, I highly suspect Apple will do something like that for their higher end machines.
What makes you think HN is that different from anywhere else?
And besides, memes persist much more readily anywhere where tribalism comes into play e.g. Politics, Apple vs. [Insert your OS here], Any Tesla thread etc.
