Exactly what I'm thinking. $278 million for PA Semi plus $121 for Intrinsity is too much to spend on a slightly warmed-over single-CPU ARM design. The purchases prevent competitors from acquiring that IP and engineering talent, but that's only a small bonus.
Yep. In the case of PA the rumor is that they where already at work on an Apple chip.
Quote:
I think Apple's long-term goal is to create their own proprietary SoC for not just their iDevices but for Macs as well.
Well this is BS!!!!!
Seriously one big selling point for Macs is that the user can run just about anything in a VM.
Quote:
This would help lower their hardware costs since they won't be paying off-the-shelf prices for one of the most expensive components in their products. And lower hardware costs will help Apple maintain their margins.
Apple simply isn't big enough to do its own processor to match the i86 families. Not even close.
Quote:
But there are two more gigantic benefits. First, Apple could conceivably transition Mac OS back from Intel to their custom multi-core ARM. They have already transitioned Mac OS through several CPU changes: 68k to PowerPC, then PowerPC to Intel. Been there, done that, got the developers to come along too. And that could enormously benefit iDevices in the next decade. Eventually mobile device CPU power will exceed that of today's desktop computers, and Apple could prepare for that future by transitioning Mac OS to run on their ARM-based mobile CPUs.
I see zero chance of this happening.
Quote:
Second, and this is perhaps the most important benefit for Apple, using a custom ARM chip on all their computing products would free them from dependence on an outside chip designers. For decades, from the 6502 to Intel Core i7, Apple has been at the mercy of the Motorolas, IBMs, and Intels of the world. Each of which have different goals than Apple. Motorola and IBM were more concerned with the embedded versions of their PowerPC chips than efficient and speedy desktop and laptop computer versions. Intel is more concerned with optimizing Windows performance than anything else. (And the CISC design of their CPUs uses vast areas of silicon for the execution of obscure backward-compatible x86 instructions generated only by Microsoft's compilers.)
It is one thing to run a program that uses ARM IP it is a totally different thing to build a processor that is functionally more impressive than the i86 hardware on the market.
Quote:
None of those chip makers really wants to build a bespoke chip just for Apple. Intel, just after Apple completed the PowerPC-to-Intel transition, gave Apple their newest chips first. The original MacBook Air had an avant-garde chip that eventually was used in other laptops. But that was presumably because Apple paid them for that privilege, an unsustainable tactic, and the honeymoon ended.
I don't know about that, if I was AMD I'd be all over Apple and very willing to build whatever SoC they wanted. Imagine if one of AMD's Bobcat based Fusion products was tweaked for Apple, with Apple IP on board.
Quote:
Apple could eliminate their co-dependence on other chip designers now that they have acquired PA Semi's and Intrinsity's intellectual property. And that will set them up for their next decade or two of innovation. No other tech company in the world will be as well prepared.
Well yeah in mobile devices, I suspect this is their goal. The problem is when you go beyond that, the issues are massively non trivial. More importantly the spark that got Macs to selling was i86 more than anything else.
I used some colloquial language, but the meaning was clear. There's no need to be so dismissive.
More so you where right. The A4 is only a minor tweak.
Quote:
The last I heard, Apple has a license to customise the Cortex A8 and A9 and so far, all they have done is do some very minor tweaks on the A8, put it in an SoC and called it the A4. My argument was only that given the IP they have, the acquisitions they have made, and the talent they acquired thereby, it makes sense that the A5 or whatever the next chip is called might be a more customised version of the actual core silicon.
If what you are saying here is accurate:
Then I'm off by a year or two and it might take until the A6 to see some real differences between Apple's silicon and the competition.
Apple absolutely needs at least dual core hardware in iPad 2. If they don't have new hardware to go into that machine then they will have trouble.
Does anyone know whether it's possible that Apple could hard wire in silicon certain functions from their core libraries for huge performance gains? That could serve as one of the reasons they are pushing developers to use only Apple's tools.
If you look at some of Apples patents you would have to say yes to that question. What they will do in reality is another thing.
Lets face it they need to deliver far better hardware on iPad simply due to the competition. It would be pretty pathetic if iPad 2 arrived with a single core processor.
You keep saying the iPad is slow and that it can?t keep up with the competition, yet everything coming from the iPad introduction stated was how surprisingly fast it felt for an ARM-based system and no other tablet OS competitor on the market has anything comparable, only minimal changes to Android 2.x.
If you honestly think that the iPad 2 (which is likely to ship months before PlayBook) has to use a much faster CPU than other tablets using ARM processors despite power management, drivers, apps, software and other aspects that can affect usability then you?re in for a shock.
You keep saying the iPad is slow and that it can?t keep up with the competition, yet everything coming from the iPad introduction stated was how surprisingly fast it felt for an ARM-based system and no other tablet OS competitor on the market has anything comparable, only minimal changes to Android 2.x.
IPad is slow as it is. The competition is a problem because many of the coming tablets will have either dual core ARM processors or ATOM processors in them. However it is not that competition that makes iPad seem slow, rather it does that on its own when anything non trivial is attempted on the platform. The problem is when these tablets are our it will become very evident as to how slow iPad is.
Quote:
If you honestly think that the iPad 2 (which is likely to ship months before PlayBook) has to use a much faster CPU than other tablets using ARM processors despite power management, drivers, apps, software and other aspects that can affect usability then you?re in for a shock.
Actually I think it needs a much faster processor just so it can begin to reach some of the goals Apple envisions for iPad. Yes I believe Apple, (Steveo and company) have a vision as to what iPad can be. iPad 1 isn't even close to what they have planned long term.
The smart way to run a company is to have the ability to create something from raw materials to the finished product and have the production capabilities to do it. By doing that there would be nothing that could stop it from creating products it wants.
Some business models have all of their design and manufacturing done by others. The people in the office just do the marketing and billing. Apple is half way between the two. They design things but don't manufacture anything.
Apple needs to take the next step with its chips and create their own. They're starting out with the A4 and perhaps with their new team will get good enough at it to design chips from scratch. They've got to start somewhere.
I wish Apple would actually manufacture things. They could start off by letting Americans assemble iPods and iPhones. Then they could have Americans manufacture the cases to their computers and idevices in the USA. In time Apple could manufacture their own circuit boards and chips in the USA. With the premium prices of Apple products the company could afford to do these things within the USA. Just the good public relations alone would get them more sales from Americans who want to support US manufacturers.
If Foxcon employs one million people in China then Apple could eventually move that production to the USA and create at least that many jobs.
We're all hopeful that the A4 isn't the end-of-the-line for Apple's processing interests. A family of A4s with varying clock speeds and then a family of A5s with new architecture that allows mulitple cores would be ideal.
It would be most telling if the Lion OSX version supports the use of ARM processors. That would solidfy the idea that Apple will take the processor into their Mac lines. With the XServe gone (why???) there's not as much need for high-powered processors. The ARM architecture will eventually catch-up in performance with Intel server offerings (read 3 years time).
An ARM server may be a done deal! There were all these rumors -- multiple cores, 64-bit...
Then it all stopped.
Silence doesn't necessarily mean that nothing is going on!
Supposedly the ARM A15 will be available in 2012:
Quote:
Last month TI announced it was the first to license ARM?s next-generation Eagle core. Today, ARM is announcing the official name of that core: it?s the ARM Cortex A15.
Architectural details are light, and ARM is stating that first silicon will ship in 2012 at 32/28nm. Here?s what we do know. The Cortex A15 will be a multi-core CPU, designs can have as few as a single core but most will have 2 - 4 cores depending on their target market.
Here's an interesting comment -- reminds me of "one more thing" or "boom":
Quote:
ARM's latest processor core announcement was the Cortex-A15, previously codenamed Eagle. The A15 complies with the ARMv7 instruction architecture but with support for 40-bit virtualization. The next ARM processor to be announced will support 64-bit and could be unveiled as soon as next week, the report said.
One possibility - which would be very reminiscent of Intel's marketing style - would be if the basic Cortex-A15 design already supports 64-bit processing and ARM has quietly kept that detail back from the original announcement to give it more publicity. As ARM is licensor of IP it might be possible to allow chip partners to choose whether to opt for full 64-bit processing or opt for 32-bit depending on application and as they are designing their implementation of the chip.
You do realize that you are arguing that what is available right now is inferior compared to something that is imaginary and exists in the future?
I don't see a general consensus out in the market that the iPad is slow. Yes indeed it will be slower than the newer technology that is not here yet. But that is the true for any technology that exists right now.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
IPad is slow as it is. The competition is a problem because many of the coming tablets will have either dual core ARM processors or ATOM processors in them.
Again this is the state of evolution of all technology.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
.Actually I think it needs a much faster processor just so it can begin to reach some of the goals Apple envisions for iPad. Yes I believe Apple, (Steveo and company) have a vision as to what iPad can be. iPad 1 isn't even close to what they have planned long term.
It looks like their intentions are to supplement the ARM instruction set with instructions that accelerate the execution of Objective C.
Dave
Can you amplify on that?
I can't remember where (my mind is long past overflowing) but I read that Apple was planning on using some technique or construct that allowed direct execution of Objective C code (without compilation or linking?).
Maybe he's been running overclocked and is suffering stability issues
Maybe he just needs better cooling. I think that goes for many of us here.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
IPad is slow as it is. The competition is a problem because many of the coming tablets will have either dual core ARM processors or ATOM processors in them.
Coming tablets… so tablets that aren’t yet available, most of which won’t be shown until next week and likely not shipping until after the iPad 2 you’re comparing a year old iPad. You honestly think that makes sense?
Does Android run on Atom or are talking about Windows. If you really think that booting, launching apps, and doing all the other general purpose consumer tasks done on tablets will be faster with Windows over Atom than with a mobile OS designed from the HW and every part of SW to be idealized for the device then I’m scratching my head even more. I guess that means you want to do heavy data crunching with a satellite computer, but why you’d think this is any way common or a sales driver is ridiculous.
Quote:
However it is not that competition that makes iPad seem slow, rather it does that on its own when anything non trivial is attempted on the platform. The problem is when these tablets are [out] it will become very evident as to how slow iPad is.
But they’re not out, so any comparison you make really comes across as trolling… but I know you well enough to know that can’t be the case. \
Quote:
iPad 1 isn't even close to what they have planned long term.
Completely fraking stumped by this comment. What first generation product that is to be updated yearly the “long term” plan specs for a product. If you think about it, you’re the only one who is considering the iPad current state as a “long term” anything by not expecting the HW to be at least comparable to what the competition can get ahold of in the future.
Here we go. What better way to completely shut the user out of the computer than making the whole thing proprietary? Mac OS will only work on Apple's architecture (read: Apple computers), and Windows, et. al. won't ever be installable because they'll have no need to build Apple versions.
It'd take forever, but it may happen.
Hardware is quickly moving back towards proprietary and software is becoming much more platform flexible. It's because software is finally advancing to a point to allow this & its the best option if you want hardware that truly works great.
Actually I think it needs a much faster processor just so it can begin to reach some of the goals Apple envisions for iPad. Yes I believe Apple, (Steveo and company) have a vision as to what iPad can be. iPad 1 isn't even close to what they have planned long term.
Totally agreed. The A4 was a good first to the dance CPU working within a well developed software ecosystem. The follow on designs will go for hardware advances and start to show the real potential of the form factor.
It seems to me they're dreaming if they think they can do better than a dedicated CPU manufacturer. Their current approach of tweaking existing designs seems like the best of both worlds. But I guess Apple can afford to try these kind of experiments and if they lose a few hundred million it's not too life threatening.
It seems to me they're dreaming if they think they can do better than a dedicated CPU manufacturer. Their current approach of tweaking existing designs seems like the best of both worlds. But I guess Apple can afford to try these kind of experiments and if they lose a few hundred million it's not too life threatening.
Maybe, but remember that Apple has both the money and the time to put toward long-term R&D.
To put into perspective Apple has about 9x as much cash as AMD?s market cap ($6B) and about 40% of Intel?s market cap ($117B).
If we consider a five or even a ten year time frame for Apple making an x86-compatible chips that leverages their OS and we use the average YoY average growth rate for the last five years how would that compare to the number of CPUs AMD currently sells? I couldn?t find how many CPUs they sell but they noted in October that they sold 25M DirectX11-capable GPUs over the past year, a number that Apple may match n 2011 in the number of Macs sold, so why couldn?t Apple also make a CPU?
It?s not like AMD or Intel are ?dedicated? to just making CPUs. Frankly, this is the kind of innovation I?d expect to see, even if it?s only to scare AMD and Intel into bending to Apple in negotiations.
If we consider a five or even a ten year time frame for Apple making an x86-compatible chips that leverages their OS and we use the average YoY average growth rate for the last five years how would that compare to the number of CPUs AMD currently sells? I couldn?t find how many CPUs they sell but they noted in October that they sold 25M DirectX11-capable GPUs over the past year, a number that Apple may match n 2011 in the number of Macs sold, so why couldn?t Apple also make a CPU?
Maybe they can do it, and those numbers really put it in perspective. I just think that Apple's strengths traditionally lie in GUI and industrial design. And Intel sets an aggressive pace with their innovations, either a new architecture or finer lithography every year. AMD have not been able to keep up with them, seemingly resigning themselves to the lower end market.
If Apple are indeed moving this way it will have to be (as you say) a long term project.
I think that multi-core ARM chips will one day make it to the Mac. It is more work on the software side to make applications use multiple cores effectively, but Apple has made progress in this and I'm sure there is a lot more coming. I'm very interested to see if there will be more multi-core programming techniques coming out with Lion. They already have Grand Central Dispatch and OpenCL. When you look at the execution unit density of ARM vs Intel or AMD, the ARM chip is capable of a lot more operations per second in the same size die. It just can't perform a single stream of operations as fast, so things need to operate more in parallel on the software side. I think that Apple sees this as the future. Intel is already going multi-core because they hit the ceiling. If you are going multi-core, it makes more sense in the long run (when you don't have legacy software) to have chips with denser execution units like the ARM. The other way things can go in the future is more execution units customized for a particular task. The ARM design still makes sense as part of the stack in that case.
It seems to me they're dreaming if they think they can do better than a dedicated CPU manufacturer. Their current approach of tweaking existing designs seems like the best of both worlds. But I guess Apple can afford to try these kind of experiments and if they lose a few hundred million it's not too life threatening.
Well the only other dedicated mobile CPU maker with it's own IP is intel, and Atom has been anything but miserly on power.
I guess that means everyone that licenses mobile class IP from ARM is doing better than the dedicated CPU manufacturer. So that leaves us with the manufacturer than can deliver the lowest power ARM core will be in the significant lead. Apple certainly seems to be trying to do that.
Comments
Exactly what I'm thinking. $278 million for PA Semi plus $121 for Intrinsity is too much to spend on a slightly warmed-over single-CPU ARM design. The purchases prevent competitors from acquiring that IP and engineering talent, but that's only a small bonus.
Yep. In the case of PA the rumor is that they where already at work on an Apple chip.
I think Apple's long-term goal is to create their own proprietary SoC for not just their iDevices but for Macs as well.
Well this is BS!!!!!
Seriously one big selling point for Macs is that the user can run just about anything in a VM.
This would help lower their hardware costs since they won't be paying off-the-shelf prices for one of the most expensive components in their products. And lower hardware costs will help Apple maintain their margins.
Apple simply isn't big enough to do its own processor to match the i86 families. Not even close.
But there are two more gigantic benefits. First, Apple could conceivably transition Mac OS back from Intel to their custom multi-core ARM. They have already transitioned Mac OS through several CPU changes: 68k to PowerPC, then PowerPC to Intel. Been there, done that, got the developers to come along too. And that could enormously benefit iDevices in the next decade. Eventually mobile device CPU power will exceed that of today's desktop computers, and Apple could prepare for that future by transitioning Mac OS to run on their ARM-based mobile CPUs.
I see zero chance of this happening.
Second, and this is perhaps the most important benefit for Apple, using a custom ARM chip on all their computing products would free them from dependence on an outside chip designers. For decades, from the 6502 to Intel Core i7, Apple has been at the mercy of the Motorolas, IBMs, and Intels of the world. Each of which have different goals than Apple. Motorola and IBM were more concerned with the embedded versions of their PowerPC chips than efficient and speedy desktop and laptop computer versions. Intel is more concerned with optimizing Windows performance than anything else. (And the CISC design of their CPUs uses vast areas of silicon for the execution of obscure backward-compatible x86 instructions generated only by Microsoft's compilers.)
It is one thing to run a program that uses ARM IP it is a totally different thing to build a processor that is functionally more impressive than the i86 hardware on the market.
None of those chip makers really wants to build a bespoke chip just for Apple. Intel, just after Apple completed the PowerPC-to-Intel transition, gave Apple their newest chips first. The original MacBook Air had an avant-garde chip that eventually was used in other laptops. But that was presumably because Apple paid them for that privilege, an unsustainable tactic, and the honeymoon ended.
I don't know about that, if I was AMD I'd be all over Apple and very willing to build whatever SoC they wanted. Imagine if one of AMD's Bobcat based Fusion products was tweaked for Apple, with Apple IP on board.
Apple could eliminate their co-dependence on other chip designers now that they have acquired PA Semi's and Intrinsity's intellectual property. And that will set them up for their next decade or two of innovation. No other tech company in the world will be as well prepared.
Well yeah in mobile devices, I suspect this is their goal. The problem is when you go beyond that, the issues are massively non trivial. More importantly the spark that got Macs to selling was i86 more than anything else.
I used some colloquial language, but the meaning was clear. There's no need to be so dismissive.
More so you where right. The A4 is only a minor tweak.
The last I heard, Apple has a license to customise the Cortex A8 and A9 and so far, all they have done is do some very minor tweaks on the A8, put it in an SoC and called it the A4. My argument was only that given the IP they have, the acquisitions they have made, and the talent they acquired thereby, it makes sense that the A5 or whatever the next chip is called might be a more customised version of the actual core silicon.
If what you are saying here is accurate:
Then I'm off by a year or two and it might take until the A6 to see some real differences between Apple's silicon and the competition.
Apple absolutely needs at least dual core hardware in iPad 2. If they don't have new hardware to go into that machine then they will have trouble.
Does anyone know whether it's possible that Apple could hard wire in silicon certain functions from their core libraries for huge performance gains? That could serve as one of the reasons they are pushing developers to use only Apple's tools.
If you look at some of Apples patents you would have to say yes to that question. What they will do in reality is another thing.
Lets face it they need to deliver far better hardware on iPad simply due to the competition. It would be pretty pathetic if iPad 2 arrived with a single core processor.
You keep saying the iPad is slow and that it can?t keep up with the competition, yet everything coming from the iPad introduction stated was how surprisingly fast it felt for an ARM-based system and no other tablet OS competitor on the market has anything comparable, only minimal changes to Android 2.x.
If you honestly think that the iPad 2 (which is likely to ship months before PlayBook) has to use a much faster CPU than other tablets using ARM processors despite power management, drivers, apps, software and other aspects that can affect usability then you?re in for a shock.
Seriously?! You?re now arguing that you can?t have gradation in how much something has been optimized or customized?
Maybe he's been running overclocked and is suffering stability issues
You keep saying the iPad is slow and that it can?t keep up with the competition, yet everything coming from the iPad introduction stated was how surprisingly fast it felt for an ARM-based system and no other tablet OS competitor on the market has anything comparable, only minimal changes to Android 2.x.
IPad is slow as it is. The competition is a problem because many of the coming tablets will have either dual core ARM processors or ATOM processors in them. However it is not that competition that makes iPad seem slow, rather it does that on its own when anything non trivial is attempted on the platform. The problem is when these tablets are our it will become very evident as to how slow iPad is.
If you honestly think that the iPad 2 (which is likely to ship months before PlayBook) has to use a much faster CPU than other tablets using ARM processors despite power management, drivers, apps, software and other aspects that can affect usability then you?re in for a shock.
Actually I think it needs a much faster processor just so it can begin to reach some of the goals Apple envisions for iPad. Yes I believe Apple, (Steveo and company) have a vision as to what iPad can be. iPad 1 isn't even close to what they have planned long term.
Some business models have all of their design and manufacturing done by others. The people in the office just do the marketing and billing. Apple is half way between the two. They design things but don't manufacture anything.
Apple needs to take the next step with its chips and create their own. They're starting out with the A4 and perhaps with their new team will get good enough at it to design chips from scratch. They've got to start somewhere.
I wish Apple would actually manufacture things. They could start off by letting Americans assemble iPods and iPhones. Then they could have Americans manufacture the cases to their computers and idevices in the USA. In time Apple could manufacture their own circuit boards and chips in the USA. With the premium prices of Apple products the company could afford to do these things within the USA. Just the good public relations alone would get them more sales from Americans who want to support US manufacturers.
If Foxcon employs one million people in China then Apple could eventually move that production to the USA and create at least that many jobs.
We're all hopeful that the A4 isn't the end-of-the-line for Apple's processing interests. A family of A4s with varying clock speeds and then a family of A5s with new architecture that allows mulitple cores would be ideal.
It would be most telling if the Lion OSX version supports the use of ARM processors. That would solidfy the idea that Apple will take the processor into their Mac lines. With the XServe gone (why???) there's not as much need for high-powered processors. The ARM architecture will eventually catch-up in performance with Intel server offerings (read 3 years time).
An ARM server may be a done deal! There were all these rumors -- multiple cores, 64-bit...
Then it all stopped.
Silence doesn't necessarily mean that nothing is going on!
Supposedly the ARM A15 will be available in 2012:
Last month TI announced it was the first to license ARM?s next-generation Eagle core. Today, ARM is announcing the official name of that core: it?s the ARM Cortex A15.
Architectural details are light, and ARM is stating that first silicon will ship in 2012 at 32/28nm. Here?s what we do know. The Cortex A15 will be a multi-core CPU, designs can have as few as a single core but most will have 2 - 4 cores depending on their target market.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/3905/a...ks-and-servers
Here's an interesting comment -- reminds me of "one more thing" or "boom":
ARM's latest processor core announcement was the Cortex-A15, previously codenamed Eagle. The A15 complies with the ARMv7 instruction architecture but with support for 40-bit virtualization. The next ARM processor to be announced will support 64-bit and could be unveiled as soon as next week, the report said.
One possibility - which would be very reminiscent of Intel's marketing style - would be if the basic Cortex-A15 design already supports 64-bit processing and ARM has quietly kept that detail back from the original announcement to give it more publicity. As ARM is licensor of IP it might be possible to allow chip partners to choose whether to opt for full 64-bit processing or opt for 32-bit depending on application and as they are designing their implementation of the chip.
http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-n...n--says-report
I don't see a general consensus out in the market that the iPad is slow. Yes indeed it will be slower than the newer technology that is not here yet. But that is the true for any technology that exists right now.
IPad is slow as it is. The competition is a problem because many of the coming tablets will have either dual core ARM processors or ATOM processors in them.
.Actually I think it needs a much faster processor just so it can begin to reach some of the goals Apple envisions for iPad. Yes I believe Apple, (Steveo and company) have a vision as to what iPad can be. iPad 1 isn't even close to what they have planned long term.
It looks like their intentions are to supplement the ARM instruction set with instructions that accelerate the execution of Objective C.
Dave
Can you amplify on that?
I can't remember where (my mind is long past overflowing) but I read that Apple was planning on using some technique or construct that allowed direct execution of Objective C code (without compilation or linking?).
TIA Dick
BTW, how goes the battle?
Maybe he's been running overclocked and is suffering stability issues
Maybe he just needs better cooling. I think that goes for many of us here.
IPad is slow as it is. The competition is a problem because many of the coming tablets will have either dual core ARM processors or ATOM processors in them.
Coming tablets… so tablets that aren’t yet available, most of which won’t be shown until next week and likely not shipping until after the iPad 2 you’re comparing a year old iPad. You honestly think that makes sense?
Does Android run on Atom or are talking about Windows. If you really think that booting, launching apps, and doing all the other general purpose consumer tasks done on tablets will be faster with Windows over Atom than with a mobile OS designed from the HW and every part of SW to be idealized for the device then I’m scratching my head even more. I guess that means you want to do heavy data crunching with a satellite computer, but why you’d think this is any way common or a sales driver is ridiculous.
However it is not that competition that makes iPad seem slow, rather it does that on its own when anything non trivial is attempted on the platform. The problem is when these tablets are [out] it will become very evident as to how slow iPad is.
But they’re not out, so any comparison you make really comes across as trolling… but I know you well enough to know that can’t be the case.
iPad 1 isn't even close to what they have planned long term.
Here we go. What better way to completely shut the user out of the computer than making the whole thing proprietary? Mac OS will only work on Apple's architecture (read: Apple computers), and Windows, et. al. won't ever be installable because they'll have no need to build Apple versions.
It'd take forever, but it may happen.
Hardware is quickly moving back towards proprietary and software is becoming much more platform flexible. It's because software is finally advancing to a point to allow this & its the best option if you want hardware that truly works great.
Actually I think it needs a much faster processor just so it can begin to reach some of the goals Apple envisions for iPad. Yes I believe Apple, (Steveo and company) have a vision as to what iPad can be. iPad 1 isn't even close to what they have planned long term.
Totally agreed. The A4 was a good first to the dance CPU working within a well developed software ecosystem. The follow on designs will go for hardware advances and start to show the real potential of the form factor.
It seems to me they're dreaming if they think they can do better than a dedicated CPU manufacturer. Their current approach of tweaking existing designs seems like the best of both worlds. But I guess Apple can afford to try these kind of experiments and if they lose a few hundred million it's not too life threatening.
Maybe, but remember that Apple has both the money and the time to put toward long-term R&D.
To put into perspective Apple has about 9x as much cash as AMD?s market cap ($6B) and about 40% of Intel?s market cap ($117B).
If we consider a five or even a ten year time frame for Apple making an x86-compatible chips that leverages their OS and we use the average YoY average growth rate for the last five years how would that compare to the number of CPUs AMD currently sells? I couldn?t find how many CPUs they sell but they noted in October that they sold 25M DirectX11-capable GPUs over the past year, a number that Apple may match n 2011 in the number of Macs sold, so why couldn?t Apple also make a CPU?
It?s not like AMD or Intel are ?dedicated? to just making CPUs. Frankly, this is the kind of innovation I?d expect to see, even if it?s only to scare AMD and Intel into bending to Apple in negotiations.
Are you one of those who just because you bought something which means you owned everything and you need to do whatever you want with it.
You can always use a PC then you can do whatever you want.
Btw this article is more on mobile chip architecture design which is the future.
If we consider a five or even a ten year time frame for Apple making an x86-compatible chips that leverages their OS and we use the average YoY average growth rate for the last five years how would that compare to the number of CPUs AMD currently sells? I couldn?t find how many CPUs they sell but they noted in October that they sold 25M DirectX11-capable GPUs over the past year, a number that Apple may match n 2011 in the number of Macs sold, so why couldn?t Apple also make a CPU?
Maybe they can do it, and those numbers really put it in perspective. I just think that Apple's strengths traditionally lie in GUI and industrial design. And Intel sets an aggressive pace with their innovations, either a new architecture or finer lithography every year. AMD have not been able to keep up with them, seemingly resigning themselves to the lower end market.
If Apple are indeed moving this way it will have to be (as you say) a long term project.
It seems to me they're dreaming if they think they can do better than a dedicated CPU manufacturer. Their current approach of tweaking existing designs seems like the best of both worlds. But I guess Apple can afford to try these kind of experiments and if they lose a few hundred million it's not too life threatening.
Well the only other dedicated mobile CPU maker with it's own IP is intel, and Atom has been anything but miserly on power.
I guess that means everyone that licenses mobile class IP from ARM is doing better than the dedicated CPU manufacturer. So that leaves us with the manufacturer than can deliver the lowest power ARM core will be in the significant lead. Apple certainly seems to be trying to do that.