techsavvy

Nice article but digital is easy, analog is hard. Apple is struggling with its own modems and likely will drop the investment altogether.  However, they can afford to invest forever. They would be better served to let Qualcomm have this one.

One major correction. Apple bought Intrinsity in 2010 for the A4 processor. The PA Semi team integrated Intrinsity’s ARM processor into an SoC.  The key to Apple’s processor success lies more in the Intrinsity acquisition than the PA Semi acquisition, although both are important.

bsimpsen said:

AppleInsider said:

Samsung also used the Hummingbird core and PowerVR GPU in its chip, which was later branded as "Exynos 3." But rather than seeking to relentlessly advance its custom chip design technology in the pattern of Apple, Samsung initially took the more comfortable and affordable route of relying on ARM to deliver its Cortex-A CPU and Mali GPU designs. That didn't work out well.

I don't think you got the history quite right here. The Hummingbird core was a joint project between Intrinsity and Samsung, with the bulk of the design credit going to Intensity and Samsung acting as the foundry. The A4 was based on that work, and debuted in Apple's first iPad in April 3 of 2010. On April 27, 2010, Apple acquired Intensity, depriving Samsung of the ability to advance the Hummingbird architecture. It was not so much that Samsung took the more comfortable course of relying on ARM. They took the only course available.

Yes, the article has the history a bit off but unless you were there it is hard to get it all correct.   Samsung engaged Intrinsity because they needed an answer for high performance ARM cores to compete.  Samsungs offerings were standard ARM cores, which are good but others (TI, Qualcomm, etc) were doing custom designs which resulted in slightly higher performance (20-30%). Samsung was afraid of losing Apple's iPhone silicon business to these competitors.  Since Samsung never had a high performance design team, they engaged Intrinsity to do the Hummingbird core.  Intrinsity had become well known in the industry as the only design team that could achieve 'Intel-like' speeds with their architects and design technology. Apple joined into the project 'later' but Samsung had dozens of engineers working with Intrinsity.  Apple bought Intrinsity because Samsung was either slow to the trigger or thought they had enough experience from the Intrinsity engagement that they could go on their own.  Samsung has been quite successful with their strategy. The so called Hummingbird core was architected by Intrinsity and implemented using Intrinsity's patented design technology.  

Following is speculation, not fact. The Apple/PA Semi team, at the time, was either working on an iPhone core (that lost to Intrinsity's core) OR (more likely) they were working on the graphics and SoC that became the A4.  At the time of the iPad announcement (2010) Intrinsity was already working on/releasing the next gen core...for Samsung and Apple.  That core actually went into Samsung phones and Apple phones/iPads.  (speculation over).

For sure Samsung did not lose Apples business due to lack of semiconductor technology.  Samsung was ahead of TSMC at the time and is still neck and neck today.  Apple shied away from Samsung foundries for competitive reasons AND because it is incredibly expensive to manage dual source at the bleeding edge as the processes are never 100% identical and you end up tweaking the core for each process at some point. At the bleeding edge, you have to pick a horse and ride it.  The iPhone would be successful with either TSMC or Samsung foundries, Apple decided to ride TSMC.

Unlike PCs, smart phones are 'not about the CPUs'.  Samsung silicon delivers just fine.  If you read the competitive articles, they are close enough that both companies deliver great products.  I can't find anything but speculation about Samsung layoffs, yet these articles tell it like 'fact'.  Projects sometimes get killed or resources are redirected to do something with higher value add (ie like buy a core and instead design an AI chip since the AI chip is where more value to the end product can be realized). I doubt the rumors are as severe as the gossip.

While a huge Apple fan, when you buy a team away from a company and then use their IP to create a solution you need to be held accountable. Apple was trying to be a bully and for once…failed. They should just settle, pay a royalty and get over it. Odds are their internal solution, like 5G radios from Qualcomm, will not be as good.

Apple has the design technology, chip architects, and system architects to win in any metric. They bought Intrinsity 15yrs ago and with that design technology will always be higher performance at a given power constraint. The A-series is focus on the highest performance attainable within a power envelope. The M-Series is ‘ditto’ but with a much higher power envelope. Both series are architected for their software environment. The software control is why they have never needed the highest clock rate in order to deliver the highest overall performance. When they decide to do a data center processor, it will also have a higher power envelope and Apple with have the highest performance data center processor. Their design technology is unique to them and not available elsewhere.

Steve didn’t return to Apple til late 1996. Not to take much away from the growing icon of Steve but Bob Brenner was Ives mentor and when Brunner left circa 1995 or 1996, Jonathon took over ID. I suspect Ives influenced Jobs as opposed to visa versus. Ives is a genius with or without Steve.

This a very good article that puts the issues into perspective.  Of note, free markets fixed perceive unfairness within months.  The FCC is a political organization and has no business being involved in the internet.  It would take years to fight improper use with the FCC.  I see a few posts making this issue a political game...which is exactly why a political commission should not be involved. The article only postulates there may be unfairness in the future and did not sight any case of unfairness in the past...that wasn't fixed by competitive pressure within a few months.  It was nice to see the FTC was not part of any pressure on AT&T (or was it?) and allowed free markets to solve the issues.