Apple's latest chip gamble
Is Apple really that much of a chip hopper?
If Apple follows through and uses a chip designed by its latest acquisition, P.A. Semi, in a future product, the company will have made major bets on Power, x86, ARM, and Power again in just this decade. What, no love for SPARC or MIPS?
P.A. Semi's chips aren't going to fit into this little package just yet, but they could one day.
(Credit: CNET Networks)A P.A. Semi representative on Wednesday confirmed last night's news that Apple has paid $278 million for the low-power chip designer. Led by prominent chip designer Don Dobberpuhl, the two-and-a-half-year-old company makes chips for embedded devices based on IBM's Power instruction set.
So what might Apple want with P.A. Semi? Forbes reported that Apple plans to put its chips inside the iPhone, but several possibilities are being considered this morning, as the industry tries to digest this piece of news.
Apple's iPhone group almost assuredly doesn't want P.A. Semi's current product. The PWRficient PA6T-1682M is the only product listed on P.A. Semi's Web page. It's a dual-core 64-bit chip designed for high-performance computing and embedded applications--things like server appliances or sophisticated telecommunications gear.
It's a pretty powerful chip that consumes between 5 watts and 13 watts of power, in most situations. However, while that may be ideal for a server, networking switch, or even a MacBook, it's way too much for a handheld device like the iPhone or the iPod Touch. The Samsung chip inside the iPhone is based on a core designed by ARM that consumes about 279 milliwatts running flat-out at 620MHz. Apple uses a slightly slower version.
Even Intel's Atom chip, which is going into so-called mobile Internet devices, consumes less power than the PA6T-1682M (that's a hell of a name). To date, no other company appears to be developing a smartphone based on this generation of Atom.
A few interesting possibilities perked up as I traveled across the Web this morning. A commenter at The Register, picked up by Slashdot, suggested that Apple could have a game console in mind. That would be a perfect application for this kind of chip, though I'm not sure that if Apple has the desire to get into game consoles, despite filing a patent for that type of device. Maybe Apple TV 3.0 could use a performance boost, which Apple would certainly get, switching to the P.A. chip and dropping an older version of Intel's Pentium M processor.
Apple could be planning to release a mobile Internet device of its own based on the chip. Again, power consumption concerns raise a red flag here, as you'd have to design any handheld device to accommodate the worst-case scenario power consumption of P.A.'s chip: 25 watts. You'd really need something bigger to effectively dissipate that much heat, as it would require a cooling fan.
Another interesting possibility could be that Apple wants to get more involved in the server market. P.A. Semi initially wanted to get its chips inside Apple's notebooks, and was apparently in discussions with Apple right up until its decision to embrace Intel's notebook processors in 2005. After that defeat, P.A. Semi pitched its chip as ideal for clusters of low-power servers.
The most likely scenario is that Apple wants a future P.A. Semi product for a handheld, server, notebook, or something in between. Dobberpuhl and his team of veteran chip designers are some of the brightest minds in the industry, with an extensive track record. The chipmaker also brings along a low-power patent portfolio that would be attractive to any company focused on low-power computers.
Apple's Scott Forstall explains how the iPhone's operating system is just like Mac OS X at Apple's iPhone SDK unveiling.
(Credit: Corinne Schulze/CNET Networks)Initially last night, distracted by the epic Game 7 played by the San Jose Sharks, I was floored by the possibility that Apple might switch back to Power after such a public divorce. Veteran Apple software developers must have whiplash at this point, working with Power, ARM, and x86 in just three short years.
But I failed to remember (helpfully reminded by TalkBackers this morning) that when Apple made the switch to Intel's chips, it directed software development down the Universal Binary path. Any piece of software written for the Universal binaries will run natively on either x86 chips or Power chips, which allows PowerPC-based Mac owners to keep their systems and upgrade to new software, such as Mac OS X Leopard.
There's an extensive list of applications on Apple's Web site that were created with the Universal binaries. That means it would be relatively painless for Apple and its partners to switch back to the Power architecture for anything that runs on the Mac, since Universal software would run natively on P.A. Semi's chips.
Could Apple do the same for the iPhone, at some point down the line, when P.A. Semi is able to get power consumption down to milliwatt levels? We learned during the iPhone SDK event in March that the iPhone's OS X is almost exactly the same thing under the hood as Mac OS X, which would suggest that it also was developed with Universal binaries in mind that could run natively on ARM and other instruction sets, such as x86 or Power. That's not at all certain, but it's an interesting possibility.
That would mean that Apple has figured out a way to develop its software as to take advantage of whatever the best chip on the market is at a given time, without having to worry about porting concerns. Don't like Intel's road map? Switch to P.A. Semi. Don't like P.A. Semi's next big idea? Switch back to Samsung. That might be a stretch, but if true, it would send a shudder down the spine of many a chip industry executive.
Finally, there's the possibility that Apple is working on some new type of handheld computer that needs something different than what the ARM community or Intel has in mind two or three years down the road. I can't imagine that Apple would buy Dobberpuhl's company without giving that team some kind of project.
Don't count on much official word from either Apple or P.A. Semi just yet. Apple spokesman Steve Dowling told Forbes that the company doesn't comment on its plans for acquired companies, and the P.A. Semi representative said she couldn't even discuss whether the company's engineers would be moving across Silicon Valley from Santa Clara to Cupertino.
In any event, financial analysts awaiting Apple's earnings conference call later this afternoon will probably attempt to get an answer out of COO Tim Cook or CFO Peter Oppenheimer. Late last year, investors had wondered what Apple was planning to do with all its cash. Now they have some idea.
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Internet search, including Google, Yahoo, online advertising, and portals, as well as the evolution of mobile computing. He has written about traditional PC companies, chip manufacturers, and mobile computers, spending the last three years covering Apple. E-mail Tom.
manufacturer. It will be great drama to see where this goes.
http://arstechnica.com/reviews/os/mac-os-x-10-5.ars/11
Apple has put some resources into something that is "as close as
possible" to a compiler while being processor independent. Details
are at
http://llvm.org/
Microsoft already has this and calls it Terminal Server, it was based on Citrix code.
Unix already has this and it is called VNC.
Symantec has software called Remote Access that does the same exact thing.
based machines after all of the gains it has made since switching to
Intel-based computers. Whatever their plans are for the company,
Apple Macintosh computers are not one of them. LOL
Apple's development X-Code suite is ideal for handling multiple platforms (multiple languages multiple OSs, multiple...)
If I was a virus writer, 'd be a little nervous right now.
That's one steep learning curve for a fraction of the damage you can inflict on Windows.
Of course if the account used to surf to the web page doesn't have Root or Admin access, it won't have privileges to write files or access those types of commands in the shell script. Unless it can run a script that exploits the Unix system to gain Root access, then all bets are off.
Basically almost the same way that Linux or any other Unix is hacked, Mac OSX can be hacked in the same way, but the AppleScript offers one extra exploit it can use to gain access and run scripts on the infected computer.
Or.... U-shaped OLED display screen for multi games systems.
The other option is the iTablet. But the Atom would be a better choice because of its more frugal TDP.
They switched to Intel when Motorola and IBM didn't make PowerPC chips fast enough or in enough supply to meet PowerMac demands. IBM stabbed Apple in the back and supplied PowerPC chips to game console makers instead of Apple, who was a partner with them in PowerPC technology.
Due to Universal Binary, Macs can be in Intel or PowerPC flavors.
I also think that Apple will use Pippin and Apple TV patents to make a new generation game console called the iGame or iConsole. It will use Mac OSX technology and use HDTV sets for a monitor and play OSX games on it. It will have one of those iPhone like hard drives in it to keep it small, but powered by a PowerPC CPU.
The reason they purchased P.A. was because they needed some new chip designers to help with Apple MB design.
All said, I would love to see Apple release a Cell daughter card.
- Can you say Newton?
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by ecoward
April 26, 2008 7:34 PM PDT
- I have heard rumors that Apple is bringing back the Newton PDA. This might be the right low power, high performance architecture that Apple needs to make the universal binary concept pay off. Universal binaries allow Apple to move from chip architecture to chip architecture without losing much compatibility. I'm waiting for the announcement about a Cell Broadband Engine Architecture for video, render farm, and gaming applications.
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