some insight into upcoming PowerMacs?

timortistimortis
Posted:
in Future Apple Hardware edited January 2014
<a href="http://www.motorolacareers.com/index2.cfm?srcCode=20352948"; target="_blank">Here</a> is a recent job ad from Motorola.



It reads:



[quote] ENGR PRODUCT II Austin, TX, USA -Southwest

Field Application Engineer.



Department Description:



NCSG; CPD; Apple Operations; Responsible for Power PC Stand-alone microprocessor product development Scope of Responsibilities/Expectations: Responsible for the Boot test plan and implementation for the microprocessors (V'ger/Apollo 6/Apollo 7). This includes software and hardware in the engineering lab and BAT1 test floor. This test step is used as a gate to the customer to improve the ATE program. Rejects from this test are debugged and ATE programs are updated to reduce PPM level. Goal is to remove this from our test flow as soon as PPM levels drop. This job has significant interaction with Apple engineering, BAT1 engineering, Somerset TMT lab and the test/product engineers for the product. Initiative is key to this position. Specific Knowledge: System level test and debug experience. Ideally with some VSLI test experience. Knowledge of fab and final test a plus. Will work with team to characterize and debug PowerPC MPUs. J973 test experience. Knowledge of OS9/X and the utilites a plus. Initiative a must. <hr></blockquote>



Now, V'ger was MPC 7450 and 7455 is the 18 micron Apollo, which I'm assuming is what they call Apollo 6 here. So here we have Apollo 7, which obviously motorola is currently working on in close cooperation with Apple, according to this information.



I guess what this means is that we'll definitely see a 13 micron MPC 7460? at MWNY. Exactly how different it will be from what we have now, and whether it'll support faster bus speeds remains to be seen.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 11
    spookyspooky Posts: 504member
    With apple's current head in the sand attitude we'll probably see for 2003:



    iMac @ 1Ghz G4 and be told how its twice as fast as a Pentium 2.4Ghz



    PowerMac @ dual 1.2Ghz G4 and be told how its ten times as fast as a Silicin Graphics Octane



    ipod with a whopping 20GB HD - whoo hoo



    god its late . . .
  • Reply 2 of 11
    lemon bon bonlemon bon bon Posts: 2,383member
    Spooky, I feel your pain.



    Lemon BOn bOn



    <img src="graemlins/embarrassed.gif" border="0" alt="[Embarrassed]" />
  • Reply 3 of 11
    spartspart Posts: 2,060member
    Damn...no G5 after all....



    Hopefully we will get .13/200-400MHz Bus/DDR/Rapid IO/1.4-1.6GHz or so.



    .13 MIGHT take us to 1.4 I know, but factor in that it would have grown to 1.2-3 anyway and 1.6-8 seems that much more reasonable.



    In fact, I think Motorola lists a 1.1GHz G4 and they have probably gone internally to 1.3...which can be overclocked to 1.4-5...which says to me we will see 1.6-1.8 from .13.



    Lot of speculation going on here.
  • Reply 4 of 11
    bodhibodhi Posts: 1,424member
    Where does it say no G5? You realize that G4 and G5 and so on are "marketing" terms for processors made by Motorola that Apple comes up with. Just because Mot calls it an Apollo 6 or 7 doesn't mean it isn't a G5. Just like we refer to it as AltiVec Apple calls it the ridiculous Velocity Engine. Just Marketing....



    [ 04-14-2002: Message edited by: Bodhi ]</p>
  • Reply 5 of 11
    lemon bon bonlemon bon bon Posts: 2,383member
    I sure can't wait until Macworld New York.



    Then. One way or another. We'll Know.



    G4 '4th' or G5 '1st'.



    I'd like to see both.



    Apple and Moto should get bolder with their processor strategy.



    Need more aggression.



    Lemon Bon Bon



    In short, I don't think anything means much until Steve says...
  • Reply 6 of 11
    timortistimortis Posts: 149member
    [quote]Originally posted by Bodhi:

    <strong>Where does it say no G5? You realize that G4 and G5 and so on are "marketing" terms for processors made by Motorola that Apple comes up with. Just because Mot calls it an Apollo 6 or 7 doesn't mean it isn't a G5. Just like we refer to it as AltiVec Apple calls it the ridiculous Velocity Engine. Just Marketing....

    </strong><hr></blockquote>



    I think there's a good chance the codename for the processor would be different if had major architectural differences. G4, G5 etc. may be marketing terms but V'ger and Apollo are not, they are internal codenames and are used only by the engineers. You never see Motorola calling the MPC 7455 "Apollo" in any of their marketing documents. The fact that they just call them Apollo 6 and Apollo 7 probably

    means it's just the good old 7455 on a smaller process. Let's just hope they add a faster bus that supports DDR, that's all.



    If Apple choose to call it a G5 without any significant enhancements that's their problem. That won't really make it a G5 for me and many others.
  • Reply 7 of 11
    haderachhaderach Posts: 32member
    This does not mean that there is no G5. Go to Motorola's career site and serach for e500, Ocean or MPC8540, and you will find no results. Nevertheless this does not mean that these are not being developed.



    Motorola seems to look for an engineer for future G4 development. The fact that they don't mention the G5 does not mean that this processor doesn't exist, it only means that this specific engineer will be needed for Apple related G4 engineering.



    It would nevertheless be interesting to find out what Apollo "6" and "7" are, maybe it's related to the production process (HiP7 ???).
  • Reply 8 of 11
    apple.otakuapple.otaku Posts: 590member
    When the PowerMacs and PowerBooks move to the G5 they are still going to need someone to work on the G4 processors for the iMac and iBook. I think its safe to assume Apple plans to use the G4 vs G5 to differenciate between consumer and pro models. The G4 still needs to scale and improve on the consumer models as the G5 will for the pro models.



    [ 04-14-2002: Message edited by: apple.otaku ]</p>
  • Reply 9 of 11
    spartspart Posts: 2,060member
    [quote]Originally posted by apple.otaku:

    <strong>When the PowerMacs and PowerBooks move to the G5 they are still going to need someone to work on the G4 processors for the iMac and iBook. I think its safe to assume Apple plans to use the G4 vs G5 to differenciate between consumer and pro models. The G4 still needs to scale and improve on the consumer models as the G5 will for the pro models.



    [ 04-14-2002: Message edited by: apple.otaku ]</strong><hr></blockquote>



    I thought about that right after i put up my first post...does make sense though...maybe were getting some really kick ass iMacs and overwhelming PowerMacs for Christmas in July.
  • Reply 10 of 11
    eskimoeskimo Posts: 474member
    [quote]Originally posted by haderach:

    <strong>

    It would nevertheless be interesting to find out what Apollo "6" and "7" are, maybe it's related to the production process (HiP7 ???).</strong><hr></blockquote>



    Yup
  • Reply 11 of 11
    junkyard dawgjunkyard dawg Posts: 2,801member
    This post should be titled, "Confirmed, G4 has a long life ahead"!



    It seems possible that different engineers would be responsible for different processor families, so this news doesn't necessarily mean there is no G5.



    Looks like these code names take us up to a G4 on a 130 nm process. Cool. A nice find, Timoritis!
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