mjtomlin

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mjtomlin
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  • Apple & ARM have been crucial to each other's survival for three decades

    mjtomlinmjtomlin
    A bit of hyperbole don’t you think?

    If anything was saved it was the ARM architecture from dying off into oblivion because of Apple’s interest in it. At the time Acorn was such a chaotic mess… it was decided that their combined work needed to be spun off into a new company, which included Acorn’s entire ARM design team and some members of Apple’s Advanced Technology Group, who had previously added some enhancements to the ISA.
    watto_cobrajony0

  • Mac Pro in danger after fumbled Apple Silicon launch

    mjtomlinmjtomlin
    charlesn said:
    Only Apple has the customer data to tell them what's "worth it" or not in terms of R&D and production investment, but with the high-end Mac Studio now taking at least some of what was already a very limited market for the Mac Pro, I'm not surprised to read that its future is on thin ice. It would probably take a big investment of both money and human talent to create a next gen Mac Pro that is significantly faster and more expandable than Mac Studio and I'm not sure the market for such a machine is big enough to justify that investment for a sprawling, $3 trillion company. 

    That's already reflected in its price. As long as there's a market and Apple can continue to make a profit from it, they'll keep it around. They updated the Mac Pro knowing the size of the targeted user base, especially after the Ultra Studio was released.

    I do have a feeling the next iteration will be a smaller chassis with half the number of PCI expansion slots though. I can't imagine there's any significant share of users that need all of those slots, especially since none can use a GPU card.
    watto_cobra

  • Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple's 'sweetheart deal' with TSMC is no such thing

    mjtomlinmjtomlin
    Toortog said:
    The only thing making this a big story is TSMC has said yields on on 3nm wafers are low.    What I've read in the past TSMC yields are around 90%, but the new 3nm the yields are just around 50%.    

    I rememberApple made the deal with TSMC after Intel had backed out of a 3nm deal with TSMC.   So what's going with yield could be why Intel backed out they could see this coming. Apple depended on the Intel TSMC deal because the Intel was the money needed by TSMC to ramp up on 3nm fabrication.  Intel backing out meant Apple wasn't going to get the 3nm chips they were planning on.   So Apple goes into negotiations with TSMC so TSMC would have funds to make 3nm chips.  Whole lot to the business side of the Apple TSMC deal.

    Apple has also been known to front cash and equipment to suppliers to get priority.
    williamlondonwatto_cobra

  • Ming-Chi Kuo says Apple's 'sweetheart deal' with TSMC is no such thing

    mjtomlinmjtomlin
    blastdoor said:
    I wonder if apple’s interest in 3nm is driven more by future products like Vision Pro than by iPhone. The iPhone could probably rest on its 5nm laurels for a couple of years. But without the volume of iPhone sales, 3nm couldn’t get off the ground. So iPhone sales fund 3nm development, but it will be Vision Pro that really benefits most

    You need volume to make anything cost effective. The iPhone is what gives Apple the scale needed to make designing their own silicon viable. Apple's main interest in any next generation node process is more about efficiency than it is about performance. Yes, the Vision Pro will benefit from the 3nm node, but so will all of Apple's products eventually.
    avon b7williamlondonwatto_cobra

  • Apple expected to invest in Arm ahead of possible September IPO

    mjtomlinmjtomlin
    tham said:
    lorca2770 said:

    Please, correct me.
    I have been following Apple since 1984 (Mac 128 ߘꩦlt;/p>

    Was it not S Jobs who at some point, during the tough times, sold ARM (since it was Apple’s company)? I think I understood it was Apple Reduced Memory. It was one of those developments that were undermined by Microsoft with the permanent: “stop the presses we are coming with something better”. So many Apple developments were drowned by, at the time, all powerful MS.
    Please advise.

    Easy mistake.  The answer is no.  You are getting AIM mixed up with ARM.   AIM (Apple-IBM-Motorola) partnered to design the PowerPC chip.  

    ARM is/was a British company.  In fact, it started as a contest on show on BBC (or was it iTV) in the late 70s on how to make a low powered computer chip.

    Personally, I think Apple will eventually end up switching to RISC-V chip.  In fact, if they're not already developing a chip...they are...for sure.  10 years, they will come out with their own design.

    Yes, AIM was a partnership to create a next generation CPU for Macs - It was a design based off of IBM's POWER architecture.

    But ARM as it is known today is not Acorn Computers. It is Arm Holdings which is a company formed by Acorn, Apple and VLSI Technologies in the late 80's. It's designed was based off of Acorn's ARM and was originally designed for the Apple Newton.

    In both cases, while the original IP was not Apple, they played a huge part in the direction the design for both went as they were going to be the major customer for both ARM and PowerPC.
    FileMakerFellerwatto_cobra