Intel gets foot in mouth about ARM-twisting iPhone comments

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 25
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by TBell View Post


    People forget that Jobs and Intel's CEO are good friends.



    Mmmmmmmm...no. I'm not so sure. Just appearing on stage together (and Otellini giving an awkward hug one time) does not a friendship make. Jobs is a serial user.
  • Reply 22 of 25
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by vinney57 View Post


    Shane and Pankaj will now have to perform 'the Act of Supplication' in the special room that Steve reserves for these occasions. Their families have been informed.



    Yeah... while Steve kicks back on his chair, throws his feet on the desk and asks "Are you a virgin?"



    "Excuse me?!"



    "Are you a virgin?"
  • Reply 23 of 25
    First off, Apple & Intel were marketed by Valentine as a "Lifestyle Brand", instead of speaking in MIPs, kb, geek speak. It said, "This can improve your life". Apple, Intel, Andy Grove & Steve were close.... Steve has too much taste to take a P3 from 14 stage pipeline to 20+ P4 - messy.... It was Steve who told Intel portable is the future, and low power even in servers.... Which is all true.



    The iPhone roadmap calls for an eventual low power x86 cpu. In fact the multimedia chips for Quicktime are all being rewritten as software ( instead of Wolfson MP3, Thompson Mpeg4 h.264 & AAC -removing these chipsets lowers costs, like Macbook design ) So the degree, and quantity of stapler throwing must have been huge!



    As you all mention, no cell phone OS is even written to run on x86, but a darwin based OS X has been optimized for x86 for a while... While retaining PPC 32/64,MIPS, ARM, x86-32/64.



    Obviously, Apple needs to keep this quiet. No one would even consider x86 in a cell phone, Mac OS X happens to run on all ISA (instruction set architecture) Imagine a full OS X ( OK, no DVD player! ) from server, desktop, TV, Macbook, to iPhone on ONE chip with ONE (mostly) stock OS. All advances like multitouch from iPhone can be thrown into all platforms seemlessly.... It's like Lord of the Rings One Platform.



    Oh, AMD never had Apple's interest. They had a fast chip, but they were completely ignoring how laptops, low power, was the future. Apple beat the entire industry to 50% portable.... and you can't build a cheap box copy of a fine notebook.



    PA Semi is not an ARM company. They had a G4 based router SOC with a faster memory bus... but they wont be using G4's in iPod/phone. They just are one of hundreds of ARM licensees ( a business Intel sold because it never made any money - but Marvel still sells Apple chips. PA Semi design team was a simple, and logical, in-house group to help make smaller, thinner, portable macbooks/iPod/Phone. They have zero allegiance to ARM. Intel still owns a license to ARM! Other ARM licensees:

    \t

    NEC Electronics, nVIDIA , STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments , Toshiba, Intel Corporation, Accent, Broadcom Corporation, Ceroma, eSilicon Corporation, Freescale Semiconductor, LSI Logic, Matsushita, Mindspeed, NEC Electronics, Qualcomm, Renesas, STMicroelectronics, Samsung, Texas Instruments , Toshiba, Oxford Semiconductor (+100's)

    (ARM is a company which licenses it's design, everyone has a license )



    Intel could STILL use a simplified marketing/naming scheme! The transition involved Intel planning a chip using only 5 watts ( but wait, not that one ) followed by another 10 x's more efficient using just .05 watts. I believe it was @ the 45nm size being ramped up now, but could be one after this new one.



    In closing, Apple just showed how to remove 40-50% of notebook parts, saving work/parts/room for errors. It is a no brainer to remove the chipsets everyone uses Portal player, Thompson multimedia, Wolfson, etc. Instead an intel CPU ( graphics acceleration), Wireless/cell, and not use ANY multimedia specialized DSP's.



    ( Again, PA semi as SOC design are always helping cram more into smaller packages, Samsung made the last Arm11 SOC but stamped Apple on it < at least before it was announced> )



    So, I feel you kids missed the real drama. Top Intel suits know it's secret, lower ranks do not know. Apple is already developing an Intel OS X platform!!! Then taunting them? ( Flash does suck CPU cycles & h.264 needs a LOT of CPU even to play.... Wonder if a core duo would fit...hmm )



    Intel is on schedule, so has nothing to "worry" about... Steve already took over Intel, & Disney animation, Apple, without "doing" more than offer to help. Also, Intel gives Apple chips first, in part because they make up a very small number. If this growth keeps up, we may have a smaller window for first silicon.
  • Reply 24 of 25
    jeffdmjeffdm Posts: 12,951member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nickolas View Post


    Intel could STILL use a simplified marketing/naming scheme! The transition involved Intel planning a chip using only 5 watts ( but wait, not that one ) followed by another 10 x's more efficient using just .05 watts. I believe it was @ the 45nm size being ramped up now, but could be one after this new one.



    First, your post is all speculation and looks like quite a string of buzzword-compliant cheerleading to boot.



    Also, Intel was making low power notebook CPUs well before Apple announced their transition.



    And your numbers in the quoted part don't stack up. A tenth of 5W is 0.5W, which is still twice the power limit that ARM chips use right now. If you really do mean 0.05W, that is a hundredth, but if true, that's quite a bold claim that Intel hasn't backed up.
  • Reply 25 of 25
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by JeffDM View Post


    First, your post is all speculation and looks like quite a string of buzzword-compliant cheerleading to boot.



    I am completely buzzword compliant? I know a lot of system software engineers @ Apple.

    Quote:

    Also, Intel was making low power notebook CPUs well before Apple announced their transition.



    Apple spent 5 years keeping secret x86 OS X at exactly the same level as PPC. They even had Apple staff @ Intel for all those years.



    Quote:



    And your numbers in the quoted part don't stack up. A tenth of 5W is 0.5W, which is still twice the power limit that ARM chips use right now. If you really do mean 0.05W, that is a hundredth, but if true, that's quite a bold claim that Intel hasn't backed up.



    The ARM1176JZF currently used in iPhone 3G uses 500 milliwatts @ 750MHz at 45nm process. Intel Atom z500 shipped April 2nd uses .65 watts Max TDP w/ Average Power of 160 mWatts. Which is very very competitive. or z510 1100 Mhz average Power 220mW.

    So far, it has been the other chips besides CPU which suck too much power. Atom n270 + 945GSE graphics has max TDP 11.8 watts. Max 2.5 W N270 @1600MHz, 6W for 945GSE, 3.3W 82801GBM I/O controller. <-- these are Max, not average,



    In 2h 2009 Intel will release an SOC with 10x lower power requirements. ( samples are already out. Graphics & memory controller will also be manufactured @ 45nm. This one is 64 bit. 1-2GHZ .5 -2W Max TDP Average should easily equal ARM especially at a lower clock speed like the underclocked iPhone @ ~ 400MHz. What's 1/2 of avg 160 mW?



    Why is Apple planning on going to Intel? Same as Macbook, less parts, less cost, better quality. Replacing QT hardware decoding with quicktime software x86-64, SSE1-4 + integrated graphics +DDR2



    The best part is how much optimization the x86 IA has, Intel makes a compiler for them, no other ISA has been optimized by so many over 3 decades. Now do you see it's possible now, and very reasonable for the next iPhone?
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