“Speculation remains high about a possible Apple-Intel chip-making deal,” Jeffrey Burt reports for eWeek.
“In a June 6 research note, Citigroup analyst Glen Yeung echoes what others have said, that Intel might enter into a deal with Apple to make the chips that power such devices as the iPhone and iPad tablet,” Burt reports. “Those chips—including the A4 and A5—currently are made by Samsung based on designs by ARM Holdings.”
Burt reports, “Yeung wrote that Intel initially could build those same chips using the ARM designs, but with the idea that eventually Apple would migrate over to Intel’s low-power x86-based chips within the next few years.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Dow C.” for the heads up.]
We need another foundry. Great news if it’s true.
Speculation. The first word is Speculation.
“but with the idea that eventually Apple would migrate over to Intel’s low-power x86-based chips within the next few years”
NOT going to happen. No intelligence here.
Intel is not interested in just producing chips on its new 3D transistor technology — since it is a very low margin market. And as to ARM-related level of SoCs, it is also very small market (even with hundreds of millions SoCs produced yearly) comparing to core Intel’s market.
Also, the article erroneously states “.. currently are made by Samsung based on designs by ARM Holdings“.
ARM only provides reference design for the cores, while everything else in the CPU, let alone whole SoC, has nothing to do with ARM.
Also, even ARM’s core is tweaked by Apple great deal to implement P.A. Semi’s (bought by Apple in 2008) unique patents which allow dramatically cut power consumption comparing to traditional designs.
The technology allows to divide all of transistors in the CPU/GPU/SoC into very small groups — with total number of groups like 30-50 thousand (!) — where every group has its own frequency and voltage management.
It works much better than usual technology, where frequency and voltage are controlled on SoC, cores, blocks (this is very best of usual technology) basis. A5 can slow down and/or switch off much more transistors when they are not actually needed than any Samsung’s ARM chip or TI’s or NVidia’s, etc.
Apple won’t be changing chips unless Intel pulls a rabbit out of its hat. Apples designs are just going to get better and better. Intel might as well make a few bucks from fabing them though.
I think Apple will stick with ARM. They’ve got too many ARM engineers on staff and are designing some super ARM derivatives unique to Apple. Can’t see them giving up this advantage to use a generic Intel chip that everyone else is using, unless Intel gets a lot better with their low power chips. They could still utilize an Intel core that they continue to customize with Apple engineering to keep Apple’s offerings unique in the market.
FFS! – not another code change. This makes nonsense of Steve’s fragmendroid comments. Then again you can bet Apple has several skunkworks projects running on everything from elastic bands to pixie dust.
Why would this speculation require a “code change”? Doesn’t iOS already run on Intel chips?
To me the speculation is harmless. The key is that Apple has flexibility. If there’s a better chip than Apple’s own ARM design then they can use it.
Never gonna happen. Intel exists to sell the ‘Intel Architecture’. Apple is the ONLY company in the consumer (read ‘volume’) market that isnt locked into the Intel Architecture because they aren’t locked in to Microsoft. They write their own software and compilers. They have the rare freedom to go with whatever works best.
I can see the logic of moving away from Samsung.
Indeed, relying on a major competitor (even if their chip and display divisions don’t have anything to do with their mobile division) for such critical components is not a good position to be in. But Intel is not the only other option out there.
“… but with the idea that eventually Apple would migrate over to Intel’s low-power x86-based chips within the next few years.”
THAT’S not going to happen. Part of the idea of Apple going for the A series of CPUs is to free itself from having to support the elephantine legacy code carried around in x86 chips. Apple don’t need it or want it.
Intel is dreaming if they think Apple gives a damn about Intel Atom chips or its descendents. The Apple ARM chips are here to stay. And I like it.
Oh, and notice how even dumbass Microsoft is porting Windows and Windows Phone over to ARM. Makes you go ‘Hmm!’