Rumor: Apple and Intel again mulling partnership to build A-series chips - Page 2

This is being portrayed in the press as Apple trying to eliminate its dependency upon its arch-rival Samsung for chip fabrication. However, Intel has established itself as an Apple back-stabber. I, for one, will never forget Paul Otellini taking the stage with Steve Jobs to announce Apple shifting from PowerPC to Intel - and later, Intel embarked upon a program called Ultrabook to encourage and support its PC vendors in copying the MacBook Air. This is not the measure of a supportive business partner.

 

Samsung is currently making A4 and A5 chips in their Austin, TX fab.  Not sure if Intel would be making the A6X in the US.  It has facilities in 63 countries and regions around the world.

 

But of course Intel also has many US facilities.  It would be great if Intel got the contract and built them in the US.

 

I don't know that the Ultrabook effort by Intel was "backstabbing". 

 

AIR, Apple got early access to large quantities (almost all) of an Intel chip designed for the Air.  These were later made available to other OEMS as a normal part of Intel's business.

 

I suspect that Apple knew all along that Intel would encourage OEMS to exploit the advantages of the new chip and the [similar to the Air] Ultrabook architecture.

 

Apple had the advantages of:

• a special chip designed (more or less) to Apple requirements
• economies of scale
• first to market lead of 9-12 months

 

AIR, Apple was able to dominate this market... and still does.

 

I think I agree with 2 windows -- but I don't think resizable and overlapping are necessary (for most uses/users more confusing than beneficial).

 

I don't think that Apple or anyone else has a completly safisfactory (or mature) touch UI.  Things like hovering, arrow keys within a selection, offset loupe for magnifying selection (more granular), inter app communication, file access... IMO, it would be a shame if putting x86 into a tablet would invorate the kb/mouse UI in detriment to the further development of the touch/voice/gesture UI.

Absolutely none of Apples recent processors have been Samsung designs.   How could you be so misinformed???    More importantly many of Samsungs designs have Apple IP in them via Apples purchase of Intrinsity.  You are off by 180 degrees here. 

 

If Apple made an x86 iPad, it would be very difficult (if not impossible) to sell if the buyers were limited to iOS apps only... If they allow OSX apps, then users will need and use a mouse/kb.

 

This is what Microsoft is trying to do: usurp the post-pc revolution with the Surface Tablets --  which really require a kb and touchpad or mouse.

 

Then Microsoft, and many other software vendors, can continue business as usual -- adding layers of bloat to existing desktop apps.

 

Some: Adobe and Autodesk, for example are taking the opportunity to rethink and reimplement their apps to work in the post-pc era...

 

IMO, there is a lot to be gained by the post-pc revolution -- I don't want to see anything short-circuit it.

You are making an assumption just like the article made that this is about ARM chips.   It could be of course but it also could be about customer i86 chips.    Intel has done special shipments for Apple in the past but this isn't what is thinking about.   Rather I'm thinking they will go further into the custom arena and produce specialized chips for the Mac Pro and maybe even Apple other desktops.  Laptops could have their own initiative too.   

 

As for the Mac Pro I could see Apple scoring big with a customized Xeon Phi like chip.    The customization here would be fewer cores to cut power to ideally well under 150 watts and a native interface to the Xeon bus instead of PCI.    Another approach would be Xeon Phi technology in a fully system master capable chip.   In other words a many core chip to replace the conventional system processor.  

 

Why do I think this is even possible?    Because Intel has become extremely quiet about their many core initiatives of late.    You don't hear much about Xeon Phi any more, nor the other chips planned in the Phi family.   This includes system processors with built in Super computer networking.   A year or so ago Intel made lots of noise about these initiatives and then suddenly went into tea lath mode.   My thought is that Apple made them an offer that was hard to refuse especially after the Luke warm reception Phi has gotten.   

 

Id be the first to admit that ARM on Intels processes might be interesting.   However it would be a very hard pill for Intel to swallow.  

I'd be really pissed off at Intel if I were TSMC, Global Foundries to name but two, not to mention the entire Semiconductor News industry for this garbage about claiming Intel will stamp out wafers on technology they don't even own or can even license.

 

The A series are 100% Apple Designs and the Fab process is 100% joint venture between Samsung, TSMC and Global Foundries. Intel isn't involved, nor will they ever be involved.

 

TSMC just announced at the end of February the new Snapdragon by Qualcomm being stamped out on the 28nm process.

 

Apple is most certainly already stamping out and it isn't with some fabricated Intel future.

If they had stopped there, no one would have accused them of backstabbing. Instead, they gave PC OEMs several hundred million dollars to create and market competitors to the MBA. Clearly, that was a shot fired directly at Apple.

Your argument makes no sense.   

 

Seriously dude if iPad had an i86 it would still be running iOS.    Frankly the vast majority of iPad buyers don't even know what an ARM chip is!   

Wasn't there an article here recently that Intel was planning on making a tablet of its own? Not sure I trust them.

Intel did say they were going to enter the Smart TV biz. Might just be a cover for Apple.

 

Yes. That's the assumption. The Reuters article was an article on how Intel is moving forward by becoming more of a foundry business as the market moves from PC to post-PC, discussing what customers Intel could have. Obviously Apple would be a big customer and they stated that Apple and Intel had discussions regarding Intel fabbing Apple's ARM SoCs. It would not be unusual for companies like Apple and Intel to have these discussion, so, I have no doubt that it has happened.

 

Same thing with custom x86 chips. I'm sure there are lots of discussions between Intel and Apple regarding custom x86 chips, from special bins of 10 W ULV Core i5/i7 chips, 1 W Atom SoCs, ARM SoCs, all the way to the Xeon Phi. And they all happen more or less simultaneously.

 

Apple's Ax chips are already made in Samsung's Austin Semiconductor plants in Texas.

 

Interesting.

 

Do you have any idea when it would be possible for the Mac Pro?

 

The ideal time to announce it would be for NAB -- April 6-11.

 

Apple could also drop the next version of Final Cut Pro X.

 

Xeon Phi is a bastard GPGPU that Apple can surpass by actually just supporting drivers for Nvidia and AMD Radeon lines, like they are doing in their latest 10.8.3 builds, both of which produce far and away better OpenCL performance for Parallel Processing, not to mention the added bonus of OpenGL 4.3 compliance.

 

What would be the advantage to Apple, or the iPad buyers, of switching CPI architecture -- if not to allow the iPad to run OSX/

Well this would make sense that Apple has all its computer processors made by intel.

Intel makes faster chips than ARM.  So far their mobile efforts have been hamstrung by power consumption, but that's changing the year.  Faster plus less power means a competitive advantage for anyone with the willingness and experience to handle a processor shift.

I hope you're right, but we've heard that a lot of times over the past few years. If and when it happens, Apple won't have any problem switching over. Even the application problems will be minimal.

Somewhere around 2073

ARM is miles from supplanting the Xeon in the Mac Pro.


I don't see any sign that Intel wants to be anything other than a supplier to tablet OEMs. At most, maybe a reference design that they license but never sell.

But even if Intel wanted to get into the tablet market, I'd still trust them 1,000 times more than Samsung. It is clear from the trial that Samsung's chip division gives inside information to the consumer products division. I don't think Intel has ever been accused of that.

 

I was asking when the new  Intel chips, that @wizard69 was describing, would be available for the Mac Pro?

 

I understand that Intel is changing, but ,AFAICT, they have yet to release chips competitive in performance/power to ARM.

 

Also, since Apple designs its own chips it can tailor them to the specific needs of the hardware and iOS.   I doubt they would have this capability with Intel, unles they contracted Intel to design custom chips for iDevices.

Good move by apple as antivirus will become resident on processors.

Let me state it more clearly.

You dont put a design of SoC from Samsung to Intel and expect it to work. No. It doesn't work that way. And it is not all they need is "Fab Space". You cant view Fab Space as a warehouse. Every SoC Design is specifically for that process node with that process technology in mind. The Ax Chip being designed with Samsung's Fab in mind could be ported to other Samsung like ( IBM Technology Alliance Partners ) such as Global Foundries with relatively short time. While i say short time this could means of 3 months and up to 6 months minimum to get the yield Apple needs. So no, this is not a easy task and not minor changes. Not to mention GF doesn't have the Fab capacity Apple needs.

So for Apple to have their next SoC Fabbed from Intel would means Apple have had time to design their SoC around the Intel's Fab tools. Intel would have sealed the deal two years ago to cooperate with Apple on the design of A7. Or in a shorted time frame they could throw their design to Intel and ask them to get it up to yield ASAP. Both solution would have taken a year at least given how completely different Samsung's Fab tech and Intel are.

What about TSMC ?

All the tools for designing with TSMC Fab in mind are easily available. Apple could have A7 with two design suited for 2 Fabs, this is hugely expensive for most but since Apple doesn't rely on making money selling SoC this problem doesn't really apply to them. I would LOVE to be proven wrong by Apple, but realistically the A6x or what ever SoC coming from iPhone 5s will properly be 28nm made by Sammy, And then Apple could pick on which one to choose for A7, Intel or TSMC.

I go by the fact that they are near identical to existing co-Samsung designs and are still made by Samsung.

I see little has changed since Apple got an ARM license though Apple are now employing some Samsung engineers. Most info here is quite made up from very small marketing snippets so am only going by what I technically see.

As for Intrinsity, they collaborated with Samsung in actual Samsung designs. Now they are trying to help Apple stand alone.