Apple chooses Samsung chip for next-gen iPods

***AppleInsider*** · 04-26-2006, 06:00 PM

Samsung Electronics recently scored a major design win when Apple Computer selected its new MP3 media processor over one from PortalPlayer to power its next-generation of iPod digital music players.

Samsung executives made the announcement while speaking at the SEMI Strategic Business conference on Wednesday.

Last week PortalPlayer announced that Apple had decided not to use the its next-generation media chips in its upcoming iPod music players. In response, PortalPlayer's stock bled 45 percent of its value in two days.

"I knew PortalPlayer would take a dive," said Jon Kang, senior vice president for the technical marketing group at Samsung Semiconductor Inc. "I knew that we would win this design."

Kang referred to the company’s chip as the "PortalPlayer killer." It's said to be based on 32-bit processor technology from ARM Holdings.

In a brief interview after the presentation, the Samsung exec said the design win represents the company's largest LSI chip order to date. “We’ve been working with Apple a long time,” he said. “It’s a huge win for us.”

He added that Samsung also supplies the "majority" of NAND flash to Apple’s iPod.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

SpamSandwich · 04-26-2006, 06:11 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by AppleInsider
Samsung Electronics recently scored a major design win when Apple Computer selected its new MP3 media processor over one from PortalPlayer to power its next-generation of iPod digital music players.

Samsung executives made the announcement while speaking at the SEMI Strategic Business conference on Wednesday.

Last week PortalPlayer announced that Apple had decided not to use the its next-generation media chips in its upcoming iPod music players. In response, PortalPlayer's stock bled 45 percent of its value in two days.

"I knew PortalPlayer would take a dive," said Jon Kang, senior vice president for the technical marketing group at Samsung Semiconductor Inc. "I knew that we would win this design."

Kang referred to the company’s chip as the "PortalPlayer killer." It's said to be based on 32-bit processor technology from ARM Holdings.

In a brief interview after the presentation, the Samsung exec said the design win represents the company's largest LSI chip order to date. “We’ve been working with Apple a long time,” he said. “It’s a huge win for us.”

He added that Samsung also supplies the "majority" of NAND flash to Apple’s iPod.

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

Dang. Wish I had purchased Samsung stock.

G_Warren · 04-26-2006, 06:22 PM

Lol. I don't think this makes THAT much difference to a company the size of Samsung though does it?

TednDi · 04-26-2006, 06:25 PM

Things that make you go Hmmmmm?

ARM the very manufacturer of the original Newton....

<insert tablet speculation here>

from wikipedia:

The MessagePad 2000 and 2100, with a vastly improved handwriting recognition system, 162MHz StrongARMSA-110 RISC processor, Newton 2.1, and a better, clearer, backlit screen, attracted critical plaudits. Although their size and expense were factors which kept them from being as popular as later PalmOS devices, the Newton still has a small but passionate user base. The final evolution of the Newton's handwriting recognition system is still considered by many to be very impressive, only matched by the more modern Tablet PC handwriting recognition system.
The MessagePad could be used with the screen turned horizontally ("landscape") as well as vertically ("portrait"). A change of a setting would instantly rotate the contents of the display by ninety degrees. Handwriting recognition would still work properly with the display rotated.
The use of 4x AA NiCd (MessagePad 110, 120 and 130) and 4x AA NiMH cells (2x00 series, eMate 300) gave a runtime of up to 30 hours (MP 2100 w/ 2x 20 MB linear Flash memory PC Cards, no backlight usage) and up to 24 hours with backlight on. While adding more weight to the Newtons than AAA batteries (as used in the MessagePad and MessagePad 100) or custom battery packs, the choice of an easily replaceable/rechargeable cell format gave the user a still unsurpassed runtime and flexibility of power supply. This, together with the Flash memory used as internal storage (if all cells lost their power, no data was lost due to the static character of this storage), gave birth to the slogan "Newton never dies, it only gets new batteries".

**melgross** · 04-26-2006, 06:26 PM

What is so interesting about these conglomerates (or maybe I should say Chaebol) is how one division competes with the other.

Samsung's semiconductor division sells Apple their largest share of Flash. Now they sell Apple the latgest order they've ever had for these chips.

But the CE division is competing with those same iPods that the other division is so eagerly selling to.

Right now, Samsung is selling far more to Apple, than they are selling MP3 players retail.

Chucker · 04-26-2006, 06:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by TednDi
ARM the very manufacturer of the original Newton....

ARM doesn't manufacture CPUs. They design cores.

spyinthesky · 04-26-2006, 06:57 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Chucker
ARM doesn't manufacture CPUs. They design cores.

Which is why of course this deal is with Samsung not ARM. Interesting however that things have effectively turned full circle.

**JeffDM** · 04-26-2006, 07:17 PM

I guess that means an Xscale chip won't be the one in the next iPod, but something to keep in mind is that Xscale is ARM based too. For what it's worth, I think iPods have been using ARM based chips for quite a while, so it probably helps minimize porting costs.

Given the uproar in Korea about Samsung's memory deal with Apple, I think they pulled out of a fab joint venture because of the threat of political inquiries. I'm curious to see if this new chip causes a problem or if those people have given up or settled down.

the cool gut · 04-26-2006, 07:22 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by SpamSandwich
Dang. Wish I had purchased Samsung stock.

I don't think you could if you wanted to. You'd have to buy it directly from the Korean stock market. And also, Samsung is a family owned business, and a pretty fucked up family at that. Best to stay away.

TednDi · 04-26-2006, 07:33 PM

I wonder if the deal has anything to do with the apple display patents that they were just granted. Samsung is a large mfr. of Plasma and LCD displays.

TednDi · 04-26-2006, 07:34 PM

But ARM is the original designer of the ARM in the Newton no?

michaelb · 04-26-2006, 07:47 PM

Does anyone have a link to the spec sheet of this chip?

I remember reading some of the PortalPlayer ones when they were announced, and predicting the capabilities of the next gen iPods based on them.

(Though Apple doesn't always use all of the capabilities, for instance the PortalPlayer chips have been able to decode .wma natively, but for some reason Apple firmware doesn't implement this feature!)

sunilraman · 04-26-2006, 09:14 PM

Originally posted by michaelb
...the PortalPlayer chips have been able to decode .wma natively, but for some reason Apple firmware doesn't implement this feature...

Hmm... I wonder why that is....

speed_the_collapse · 04-26-2006, 09:36 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by sunilraman
Originally posted by michaelb
...the PortalPlayer chips have been able to decode .wma natively, but for some reason Apple firmware doesn't implement this feature...

Hmm... I wonder why that is....

congrats on your 4000th post!
the portalplayer chips had wireless capabilities, do these samsung ones have them as well?

sunilraman · 04-26-2006, 09:38 PM

Originally posted by speed_the_collapse
congrats on your 4000th post!..........

W00t!! Thanks

SyndicateX · 04-27-2006, 01:38 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by melgross
What is so interesting about these conglomerates (or maybe I should say Chaebol) is how one division competes with the other.

Samsung's semiconductor division sells Apple their largest share of Flash. Now they sell Apple the latgest order they've ever had for these chips.

But the CE division is competing with those same iPods that the other division is so eagerly selling to.

Right now, Samsung is selling far more to Apple, than they are selling MP3 players retail.

Hey, If you cant beat em...join em!

**melgross** · 04-27-2006, 02:25 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by SyndicateX
Hey, If you cant beat em...join em!

I read an Apple journal article on ARs a bit earlier tonight.

Jade had a good idea of what Samsung might do in response to these contracts with Apple.

Don't forget that they said that in 2007, Samsung's MP3 players would be number one.

They can claim that they met their goal by declaring the iPod as their new MP3 player.

**Mr. H** · 04-27-2006, 04:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by TednDi
Things that make you go Hmmmmm?

ARM the very manufacturer of the original Newton....

hmmmmmmmm...

The Portal Player chip that Apple currently uses is also ARM based. Each chip has two ARM-7 cores.

palegolas · 04-27-2006, 05:31 AM

If you were to buy stocks, buy ARM stocks... or you should have... 10 years ago. ARM is in any bloody portable device nowadays.
Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nokia phones, Sony Ericsson phones, iPods, HDTVs, Cameras, Notepads, Sony PSP etc...

hobBIT · 04-27-2006, 05:34 AM

To help solve the ARM confusion:

In the days of the Newton ARM designed and manufactured the chips.
When the Newton was axed by Steve the ARM chip was undoubtedly the strongest asset in the whole group as Apple owned a considerable share of ARM.

Faced with the demise of Newton, ARM decided to continue designing its chips but no longer manufacture them. Instead they offered the design to anyone who wants to build their custom chips around an ARM core. This turned out to be a successful strategy because the market for embedded chips was still very small then so it helped that potential buyers could customize the chips to their liking while keeping the original successful ARM design.

Today there are many different ARM variations on the market from chips that are ultra-low power to designs with several cores and high performance for multimedia devices.

Apple sold most of its holdings in ARM bit by bit a couple of shares each year and I think they no longer hold any share.

ghstmars · 04-27-2006, 06:12 AM

does anyone know spec of the samsung chip?

Chucker · 04-27-2006, 06:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by hobBIT
In the days of the Newton ARM designed and manufactured the chips.

I don't believe ARM ever manufactured, but I could be mistaken.

sunilraman · 04-27-2006, 09:51 AM

Originally posted by melgross
...Don't forget that they said that in 2007, Samsung's MP3 players would be number one...They can claim that they met their goal by declaring the iPod as their new MP3 player.

That would be hella funny if they claimed that. Yeah overall revenue and profit wise, now including this deal, what the NAND and this Samsung chip brings in will probably far outstrip the revenue and profit of Samsung's own MP3 thingys.

Hmm... what new goodies will this newfangled iPod core bring?

Or a "Mac OS 10.5 Leopard: To Go" PDA ??

TednDi · 04-27-2006, 09:55 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by sunilraman
[i]Originally posted by melgross

Hmm... what new goodies will this newfangled iPod core bring? Or a "Mac OS 10.5 Leopard Lite" PDA ??

The new iPod: Now with Kimchee!!

sunilraman · 04-27-2006, 09:56 AM

Heh

I don't like kimchee

**melgross** · 04-27-2006, 01:37 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Chucker
I don't believe ARM ever manufactured, but I could be mistaken.

They did, for a while. But they never came close to breaking even, so they discontinued doing it, and became the boutique design firm they are now.

It wasn't the discontinuance of the Newton that did it though. That only used a couple of hundred thousand chips a year, though I think Apple sold around 300 thousand the last year.

MacSuperiority · 04-28-2006, 12:12 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by TednDi
The new iPod: Now with Kimchee!!

That shits pretty good. Spiced Cabbage

RRR89 · 06-01-2006, 05:39 AM

Looks like he spoke too soon.

sunilraman · 06-01-2006, 08:55 AM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by sunilraman
Hmm... what new goodies will this newfangled iPod core bring? "Mac OS 10.5 Leopard: To Go" for Smartphone/PDA ??

Just had an idea. Windows has Windows: Mobile edition. How boring sounding.

For the Mac, Mac Os 10.5 Leopard: Kitty Edition for Smartphone PDAs.

RRR89 · 06-01-2006, 06:24 PM

[QUOTE]Originally posted by sunilraman

Quote:

Originally posted by sunilraman
Hmm... what new goodies will this newfangled iPod core bring? "Mac OS 10.5 Leopard: To Go" for Smartphone/PDA ??

Just had an idea. Windows has Windows: Mobile edition. How boring sounding.

For the Mac, Mac Os 10.5 Leopard: Kitty Edition for Smartphone PDAs.

Like it.

RRR89 · 06-01-2006, 06:25 PM

A PDA like device would surely be nice to see.

RRR89 · 06-01-2006, 06:27 PM

Or a 10 to 12 inch Macbook!:

04-26-2006, 06:00 PM	#1
*AppleInsider* Kasper's Automated Slave Join Date: Nov 1997 Posts: 6,153	Apple chooses Samsung chip for next-gen iPods Samsung Electronics recently scored a major design win when Apple Computer selected its new MP3 media processor over one from PortalPlayer to power its next-generation of iPod digital music players. Samsung executives made the announcement while speaking at the SEMI Strategic Business conference on Wednesday. Last week PortalPlayer announced that Apple had decided not to use the its next-generation media chips in its upcoming iPod music players. In response, PortalPlayer's stock bled 45 percent of its value in two days. "I knew PortalPlayer would take a dive," said Jon Kang, senior vice president for the technical marketing group at Samsung Semiconductor Inc. "I knew that we would win this design." Kang referred to the company’s chip as the "PortalPlayer killer." It's said to be based on 32-bit processor technology from ARM Holdings. In a brief interview after the presentation, the Samsung exec said the design win represents the company's largest LSI chip order to date. “We’ve been working with Apple a long time,” he said. “It’s a huge win for us.” He added that Samsung also supplies the "majority" of NAND flash to Apple’s iPod. [ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

04-26-2006, 06:22 PM	#3
G_Warren Registered User Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Edinburgh Posts: 682	Lol. I don't think this makes THAT much difference to a company the size of Samsung though does it? Blocksoft - donationware and shareware for OS X.

04-26-2006, 07:17 PM	#8
JeffDM Global Moderator Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: .US Posts: 9,127	I guess that means an Xscale chip won't be the one in the next iPod, but something to keep in mind is that Xscale is ARM based too. For what it's worth, I think iPods have been using ARM based chips for quite a while, so it probably helps minimize porting costs. Given the uproar in Korea about Samsung's memory deal with Apple, I think they pulled out of a fab joint venture because of the threat of political inquiries. I'm curious to see if this new chip causes a problem or if those people have given up or settled down. Last edited by JeffDM; 04-26-2006 at 07:25 PM..

04-26-2006, 09:14 PM	#13
sunilraman Legacy Code Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: 5.25" Floppy Disk Posts: 7,562	Originally posted by michaelb ...the PortalPlayer chips have been able to decode .wma natively, but for some reason Apple firmware doesn't implement this feature... Hmm... I wonder why that is.... Disclaimer: Any rants, raves, financial advice or lack thereof, comments, etc. are to be used at your own risk and are solely that of myself and do not necessarily represent the views of any company or organisation.

04-26-2006, 09:38 PM	#15
sunilraman Legacy Code Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: 5.25" Floppy Disk Posts: 7,562	Originally posted by speed_the_collapse congrats on your 4000th post!.......... W00t!! Thanks Disclaimer: Any rants, raves, financial advice or lack thereof, comments, etc. are to be used at your own risk and are solely that of myself and do not necessarily represent the views of any company or organisation.

04-26-2006, 06:25 PM	#4
TednDi Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Earth Posts: 1,729	Things that make you go Hmmmmm? ARM the very manufacturer of the original Newton.... <insert tablet speculation here> from wikipedia: The MessagePad 2000 and 2100, with a vastly improved handwriting recognition system, 162MHz StrongARMSA-110 RISC processor, Newton 2.1, and a better, clearer, backlit screen, attracted critical plaudits. Although their size and expense were factors which kept them from being as popular as later PalmOS devices, the Newton still has a small but passionate user base. The final evolution of the Newton's handwriting recognition system is still considered by many to be very impressive, only matched by the more modern Tablet PC handwriting recognition system. The MessagePad could be used with the screen turned horizontally ("landscape") as well as vertically ("portrait"). A change of a setting would instantly rotate the contents of the display by ninety degrees. Handwriting recognition would still work properly with the display rotated. The use of 4x AA NiCd (MessagePad 110, 120 and 130) and 4x AA NiMH cells (2x00 series, eMate 300) gave a runtime of up to 30 hours (MP 2100 w/ 2x 20 MB linear Flash memory PC Cards, no backlight usage) and up to 24 hours with backlight on. While adding more weight to the Newtons than AAA batteries (as used in the MessagePad and MessagePad 100) or custom battery packs, the choice of an easily replaceable/rechargeable cell format gave the user a still unsurpassed runtime and flexibility of power supply. This, together with the Flash memory used as internal storage (if all cells lost their power, no data was lost due to the static character of this storage), gave birth to the slogan "Newton never dies, it only gets new batteries".

04-26-2006, 06:26 PM	#5
melgross Global Moderator Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: NYC Posts: 19,612	What is so interesting about these conglomerates (or maybe I should say Chaebol) is how one division competes with the other. Samsung's semiconductor division sells Apple their largest share of Flash. Now they sell Apple the latgest order they've ever had for these chips. But the CE division is competing with those same iPods that the other division is so eagerly selling to. Right now, Samsung is selling far more to Apple, than they are selling MP3 players retail.

04-26-2006, 07:33 PM	#10
TednDi Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Earth Posts: 1,729	I wonder if the deal has anything to do with the apple display patents that they were just granted. Samsung is a large mfr. of Plasma and LCD displays.

04-26-2006, 07:34 PM	#11
TednDi Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Earth Posts: 1,729	But ARM is the original designer of the ARM in the Newton no?

04-26-2006, 07:47 PM	#12
michaelb Registered User Join Date: Jan 2003 Posts: 223	Does anyone have a link to the spec sheet of this chip? I remember reading some of the PortalPlayer ones when they were announced, and predicting the capabilities of the next gen iPods based on them. (Though Apple doesn't always use all of the capabilities, for instance the PortalPlayer chips have been able to decode .wma natively, but for some reason Apple firmware doesn't implement this feature!)

04-27-2006, 05:31 AM	#19
palegolas Registered User Join Date: May 2005 Posts: 383	If you were to buy stocks, buy ARM stocks... or you should have... 10 years ago. ARM is in any bloody portable device nowadays. Game Boy Advance, Nintendo DS, Nokia phones, Sony Ericsson phones, iPods, HDTVs, Cameras, Notepads, Sony PSP etc...

04-27-2006, 05:34 AM	#20
hobBIT Registered User Join Date: Jun 2004 Location: Shire Posts: 437	To help solve the ARM confusion: In the days of the Newton ARM designed and manufactured the chips. When the Newton was axed by Steve the ARM chip was undoubtedly the strongest asset in the whole group as Apple owned a considerable share of ARM. Faced with the demise of Newton, ARM decided to continue designing its chips but no longer manufacture them. Instead they offered the design to anyone who wants to build their custom chips around an ARM core. This turned out to be a successful strategy because the market for embedded chips was still very small then so it helped that potential buyers could customize the chips to their liking while keeping the original successful ARM design. Today there are many different ARM variations on the market from chips that are ultra-low power to designs with several cores and high performance for multimedia devices. Apple sold most of its holdings in ARM bit by bit a couple of shares each year and I think they no longer hold any share.

04-27-2006, 06:12 AM	#21
ghstmars Registered User Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: nyc Posts: 130	does anyone know spec of the samsung chip? The world belongs to who wants it , now who deserves it.

04-27-2006, 09:51 AM	#23
sunilraman Legacy Code Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: 5.25" Floppy Disk Posts: 7,562	Originally posted by melgross ...Don't forget that they said that in 2007, Samsung's MP3 players would be number one...They can claim that they met their goal by declaring the iPod as their new MP3 player. That would be hella funny if they claimed that. Yeah overall revenue and profit wise, now including this deal, what the NAND and this Samsung chip brings in will probably far outstrip the revenue and profit of Samsung's own MP3 thingys. Hmm... what new goodies will this newfangled iPod core bring? Or a "Mac OS 10.5 Leopard: To Go" PDA ?? Disclaimer: Any rants, raves, financial advice or lack thereof, comments, etc. are to be used at your own risk and are solely that of myself and do not necessarily represent the views of any company or organisation.

04-27-2006, 09:56 AM	#25
sunilraman Legacy Code Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: 5.25" Floppy Disk Posts: 7,562	Heh I don't like kimchee Disclaimer: Any rants, raves, financial advice or lack thereof, comments, etc. are to be used at your own risk and are solely that of myself and do not necessarily represent the views of any company or organisation.

06-01-2006, 05:39 AM	#28
RRR89 Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 8	Looks like he spoke too soon. Last edited by RRR89; 06-01-2006 at 05:46 AM..

06-01-2006, 08:55 AM	#29
sunilraman Legacy Code Join Date: Jul 2004 Location: 5.25" Floppy Disk Posts: 7,562	[QUOTE]Originally posted by sunilraman Hmm... what new goodies will this newfangled iPod core bring? "Mac OS 10.5 Leopard: To Go" for Smartphone/PDA ?? Just had an idea. Windows has Windows: Mobile edition. How boring sounding. For the Mac, Mac Os 10.5 Leopard: Kitty Edition for Smartphone PDAs. Disclaimer: Any rants, raves, financial advice or lack thereof, comments, etc. are to be used at your own risk and are solely that of myself and do not necessarily represent the views of any company or organisation.

06-01-2006, 06:25 PM	#31
RRR89 Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 8	A PDA like device would surely be nice to see.

06-01-2006, 06:27 PM	#32
RRR89 Registered User Join Date: May 2006 Posts: 8	Or a 10 to 12 inch Macbook!:

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