Intel and Apple--future rivals?
As Intel readies its most potent chip yet for small devices, Apple may already be using competing technology.
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Apple iPhone 3GS processor
(Credit: iFixit)One of the themes of the upcoming Intel Developer Forum (starting Tuesday) will be the chip giant's foray into the smartphone and mobile Internet device (MID) markets. Intel's current Atom chip is fine for Netbooks but has had little impact on MIDs and zero impact on smartphones, where it is simply too power hungry to be usable.
Enter Moorestown. A much more power efficient Atom chip, due by 2010, that should find its way into high-end LG smartphones, MIDs from Asian device makers, and tablets (from HP? Dell?).
Just so happens that Apple is doing analogous chip development. When Apple acquired chip design firm P.A. Semi in March 2008 it got a team of very capable engineers that, almost certainly, are designing silicon for future iPhones, iPods, and tablets (or "media pads"--choose your nomenclature).
But it's really not even necessary to speculate about the future. The Apple chip has already arrived (see photo). Some analysts believe that the Apple-branded chip in the iPhone is a fairly unique design and that Apple is simply using Samsung as a chip "foundry" or manufacturer. That would mean Apple is already competing with Intel's Atom, not to mention the host of ARM chip suppliers such as Texas Instruments and Qualcomm.
And where might Apple supply its own silicon in the future? Beyond the iPhone--where Intel clearly has nothing to offer currently--there's the expected emerging tablet and MID markets. Make the iPod touch's screen a few inches bigger diagonally, add a few more features and you theoretically have a MID. (Some, of course, will argue that the iPod is already a MID/media player.) Make the screen even bigger (8 to 10 inches), give it more compute and graphics horsepower, and add a few more software and hardware bells and whistles, and you theoretically have a next-generation Apple tablet and/or media pad.
Those are all markets where Intel's Moorestown (and, later, Medfield) will compete.
Apple has a current market capitalization of about $165 billion (Intel's is about $110 billion). Two heavyweights with two competing visions of small devices. Will one of the big battlegrounds of the future be Apple tablets versus Intel-based tablets? Or--perish the thought--an Apple Netbook using an Apple chip instead of an Intel Atom? It's tantalizing to speculate.
And 2010 is just around the corner. It should be an interesting year for fresh new device designs and equally interesting competition between two computer industry Goliaths.
Note: Here's the official Intel description of Moorestown: "Intel's second-generation MID platform, which consists of a System on Chip (codenamed 'Lincroft') that integrates a 45nm Intel Atom processor core, graphics, video and memory controller. The platform also includes an input/output (I/O) hub, codenamed 'Langwell,' that includes a range of I/O blocks and supports wireless solutions.
(See: CNET Reporters Roundtable discussion of IDF and other Intel topics.)
Brooke Crothers has served as an editor at large at CNET News, an editor at Dow Jones' Asian Wall Street Journal Weekly, and a senior editor at InfoWorld. His CNET blog covers chip technology and computer systems, and how they define the computing experience. He also contributes to The New York Times' Bits and Technology sections. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. Follow Brooke on Twitter @mbrookec. 
The only way that Apple would become a rival to Intel is if Apple started to sell chips to outsiders. That is unlikely.
Apple seems to be developing chips for its own use. It has had a long history of doing so. Its purchase of PASemi may fit into that plan. But, we really don't know yet.
Besides, Intel has had a very poor history of providing low powered chips. The Atom chip seems to show some promise, but Intel has no lock in on low powered chips for Phones or PDA's. The ARM chips show the highest use in this arena. Apple uses the Cortex A8 ARM processor chip in the iphone and the iPod Touch. It may well be developing some ARM chips for its own use.
Apple owes Intel nothing. It has never used an Atom chip in any of its devises.
So yes, the title is correct.
I also don't see Apple capturing 30% of the tablet/MID/netbook market. I could be wrong, but I don't see it.
Apple has a long history of developing its own chips for its own use. Also, the use of ARM-based processors is nothing new for Apple; the Newton used an ARM processor (development on the Newton began twenty years ago). Apple's acquisition of P.A. Semi is really business as usual, nothing eyebrow raising.
I can see Apple using their own chip designs for small items, such as the iPod line and the much-rumored Tablet, and perhaps even a single small verification chip to keep the Hackintosh crowd from churning out home-brewed Macs - but I doubt they will abandon Intel's expertise in creating high-end CPU chips --- Well, unless they invent something so utterly revolutionary that it blows Intel away and is cheaper than water to make. But I doubt that will happen.
Conclusion.
Apple will not use Atom in their tablet. They will use their own system on a chip based on the ARM architecture which was designed by the engineers they acquired from PA Semi. They could even use multiple cores or multiple processors for use in their laptops that would take advantage of Grand Central Dispatch and Open CL in Snow Leopard in their line of laptops while abandoning the intel chips they currently use creating an extremely power efficient yet still moderately powerful macbook.
There is no risk to the strategy, Intel is caught with all the old Windows Machines, Microsoft is caught with all the old Windows machines, so only Apple can move quickly into new, faster spaces.
I would be a little surprised if Apple did not have a full blown OS X running on ARM today in the lab.
Read the line after the Apple logo...
339500473ARM
Besides the obvious of an Apple logo appearing on the new chips it is also noticeable that Apple has become very secretive about the details of those chips while it is not secretive at all about the chips used in their laptops and desktops. It seems they are hiding technological developments that it believes give it a competitive advantage and will become more apparent as time goes by.
No they're not. Apple has nothing to compete with Atom, and Intel has nothing (at the moment) to compete with the chip used in the iphone.
What a dumb thing to claim...
It doesn't hurt that Apple is (or was) heavily invested in ARM, and that they've got a lot of institutional memory around the ARM7. The first three iPod generations all used Portal Player's 5002C, which was based around a dual ARM7 core.
I think the point is moot. Apple has invested heavily in several semiconductor companies over the years in terms of talent and money. Since Steve came back, they've stopped doing that, preferring to just buy new chip designs/foundries outright. It makes sense that Apple will just go with ARM until it doesn't make sense to anymore - and given that Intel has some pretty compelling low-power designs, I think they'd be crazy not to consider Intel's designs in the future.
Do you know anything about the Apple/Intel relationship?
Apple uses Intel chips for all of its machines EXCEPT for the iPhone and iPod line. They have NEVER used an AMD chip.
I'm sure Intel wants Apple's business, but really all it needs to do is come out with a processor that can beat whatever Apple can develop internally, and then Apple will buy from them. Otherwise Apple will develop processors that fit it's needs the best, and go that route. You're not going to see Apple start stealing customers away from Intel products.
Any company can license the design and build it themselves. If you hold an architecture license, you can even modify it to add different capabilities. As long as it runs the instruction set properly, you can brand it as an ARM.
Thanks for clearing that up for me, but Apple is still fabless, correct?
Crapple aint got nuthin to compete with TEGRA.
?Creating Tegra was a massive challenge. Our vision was to create a platform that will enable the 2nd personal computer revolution ? which will be mobile centric, with devices that last days on a single charge, and yet has the web, high definition media, and computing experiences we?ve come to expect from our PC,? said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO at NVIDIA. ?Shrinking down a 50 watt PC architecture will not create the discontinuity this industry needs. The culmination of nearly 1,000 man years of engineering, Tegra is a completely ground-up computer-on-a-chip architecture that consumes 100 times less power. Mobile internet and computing devices built with Tegra are going to be magical.?
TEGRA is "magically delicious" !!!
- by AppleSuxLeo September 20, 2009 10:12 PM PDT
- I have the future in my hand...
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (52 Comments)And it has TEGRA/OLED !
So fast...so "eye-candy" mmmmh