Comments on: Analyst: Intel will stamp out Apple ARM-based iPhone processors – if Apple switches to x86 chips in iPad

By: Phillip Boushy

Phillip Boushy — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 20:47:12 +0000

The whole iPad simulator is an emulator… It emulates everything in the iPad. And it’s running partially compiled code. Not a full binary. Therefore it an be run with very little emulation. iOS is not built for Intel processors.

By: Giblet

Giblet — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 16:07:35 +0000

Agree–not happening. A move to x86 for iOS devices would negate all the ARM A series investments AAPL has made. ThoughI can see Intel fabbing & wafering for the A chips & continuing x86 for the apple workstations

By: Engineer

Engineer — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 12:28:13 +0000

AMD’s current market cap is 1.2 Billion. You could probably buy AMD easily for $5B. A modern fab, like Apple wants, goes for $5-$10B, and apple would need several.

By: Only You

Only You — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 06:03:03 +0000

Obviously, fashion nowadays but, you don’t have to actually live in WA or CO to be that kind of high.

By: 84 Mac Guy

84 Mac Guy — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:50:41 +0000

Here in Oregon, Intel is expanding like Ballmer’s waistline after a trip to Outback Steakhouse. They just finished one humongous new factory and are about to start construction on a second. With the PC market declining, something is up because Intel is not stupid. I would not be surprised if Intel and Apple were cooking up some deal that will keep Intel real busy making chips for Apple.

By: Silent Majority

Silent Majority — Sat, 01 Dec 2012 00:35:27 +0000

Depends if the fans and batteries blend MDN.

By: Some Guy

Some Guy — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 23:45:55 +0000

iOS already runs on x86, and it has from the beginning. The device simulators in Xcode aren’t running an ARM emulator.

By: Danox

Danox — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 23:44:20 +0000

No he doesn’t the Apple boat has left the dock and Intel isn’t on board. Bon Voyage!

By: pridon

pridon — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 23:42:01 +0000

GlobalFoundries (former AMD foundries) already working on ARM architecture solutions 28 nm and ARM 9 SOC. This may make a good partner.

By: Danox

Danox — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 23:38:54 +0000

Why? So Intel can turn around and stab Apple in the back and sell the tech to another company, do it your Apple within three years.

By: jeo

jeo — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 23:32:09 +0000

if Apple switches to x86 in iPads……… and rewrite iOS for x86?
does this anal yst knows anything about software???

By: Danox

Danox — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 23:27:56 +0000

No, built your own fab, buying AMD would cost than doing it yourself.

By: MEES

MEES — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:55:48 +0000

By: spyintheskyuk

spyintheskyuk — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:51:30 +0000

Laughable conclusion. How often have we heard that Intel is finally going to compete in small form factors. If that was going to happen we wouldn’t now have Win 8 Surface RTs and soon Win 8 Bricks with 5 hours if you re lucky battery life.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 22:47:01 +0000

Can’t quite figure out if you are just thick,,,, or are you trying to be funny?

I hope you are being sarcastic, because you DO KNOW that the 12 inch wafers would have an array of SOC chips on it (numbering up-to 20 by 20 or more)…RIGHT? A single 12 inch wafer would have hundreds of chips.

By: Some Guy

Some Guy — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:55:58 +0000

The best possible outcome is Intel fabricating Apple’s CPU designs. If Apple had access to Intel’s semiconductor process technology, they could save as much as 20% of the power their CPUs take today.

By: Good one!

Good one! — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:34:43 +0000

“According to Freedman, Apple’s demand for 12-inch system-on-a-chip wafers …”

Hahahaha — Siri couldn’t fit this 12-incher — and you wouldn’t want to see a tablet that could!

By: coolfactor

coolfactor — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:33:04 +0000

Do you mean that they might actually read he article to see what MDN means? Hmmm, that would seem like a good thing for MDN…. haha

By: iGads

iGads — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:21:06 +0000

Doug is obviously high. Does he live in WA or CO?

By: Shadowself

Shadowself — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:06:36 +0000

R2,
Lighter, yes. A lot lighter, yes. Thinner, yes. A lot thinner, no. There is a point where it is just impractical to pack in all the chips, batteries, backing for stiffness, etc. You can only make these just so thin. There’s a point where the items start to become to flexible and feel cheap (like some of the competitor tablets already).

Most people think that Apple will go to an ARM based solution for everything, including Macs. My belief is that IF it happens it won’t happen before 2018 and probably not until 2020 or later.

This guy thinks Apple is going to be forced to ink some deal that goes the other way: x86 chips in the iPad. Apple needs to keep making the iPad more capable without sacrificing battery life. (One of the big complaints with the coming Surface Pro is that its battery life will suck!) In order to do this, Intel will be pitching something like the Skymont chip (based upon the Skylake architecture on a 10 nm feature size). This could possibly be the best of both worlds: Very Low Power and Very Fast. HOWEVER, that chip won’t be around for at least four years and very likely not for five years. Apple wouldn’t be shipping iPads based upon it for at least six months to a year after that.

Thus, in the extremely unlikely event that Apple does put x86 chips in the iPad, it won’t happen until 2018 or 2019.

Hmmm… the same general time frame for the switch the other way, if that happens.

2018 through 2020 could be some very interesting times!

By: Michael

Michael — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 21:02:18 +0000

Stupid reasoning. Intel has made ARM CPUs in the past, XScale.

As PC sales dwindle, Intel is going to need to make use of the foundries they already have, which cost billions to build. Partnering with Apple to manufacture hundreds of millions of SoCs is exactly what they’ll need to offset the lost production.

Here’s what I see happening (if they partner with Intel),

1. Apple buys Samsung’s Austin plants, takes over production of current A5, A5X, A6, A6X and future A7, A7X. Apple runs the plants for the next few years until these are phased out. Sells plants to Intel.

Intel retools a couple of their own plants for the A8 and beyond. A few years down the road, they buy Apple’s Austin plants and retool it for whatever the next generation is, A11? A12?

By: Jersey_Trader

Jersey_Trader — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:56:05 +0000

If only Apple had about $125 BILLION in cash to solve a supply or manufacturing problem like this. What will Apple do. If only!

Idiots. The value of the facility that AMD is selling to build up their cash is what Apple generates 3 times a day every day. Do these idiots really understand the scope and scale of Apple?

Clueless idiots!

By: cb

cb — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:53:11 +0000

Didn’t Intel recently create some new low power chip? Haswell?

By: trondude

trondude — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:53:03 +0000

Please no Atom processor for iPad….

By: Alf

Alf — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:48:59 +0000

Intel is not in a position to demand concessions or offsets from Apple. This story is stupid.

By: R2

R2 — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:40:17 +0000

The iPad needs to become lighter and thinner, pronto. And after they finalize their latest light and thin model, they need to start working on an even lighter and thinner version. The last thing they could do is put those big stupid Intel chips in there. Imagine the goddamn iPad mini with Intel Inside.

By: Bobchr

Bobchr — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:39:04 +0000

I don’t think Intel has the upper hand here. PC sales are in the toilet so what good would their excess capacity do them trying to foist their crap onto Apple and what’s Apples a upside in taking that deal? Intel still haven’t proven that they can make an efficient processor for portable applications, and how many hundreds of thousands of apps would have to be rewritten or run under emulation at a painfully slow clip wasting battery power?

By: Really

Really — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:34:31 +0000

If Intel were serious they’d ask for a commitment to keeping x86 on the mac and make a healthy profit supplying Apple with all the ARM chips they need.

Forget the ipad, its a done deal and i don’t see Apple switching to intel for the ipad. It would require fat binaries and a re-compile of all existing apps at the least.

By: Raymond in DC

Raymond in DC — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:31:34 +0000

Intel? We don’t need no stinkin’ Intel in our iPads! Of course, if Intel wants to *manufacture* chips to Apple’s designs, as Samsung and TSMC do, maybe Apple has something to talk about.

Apropos, just fired up my new iPad yesterday. Nice. Real nice.

By: Dietrich

Dietrich — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:22:50 +0000

It would be interesting if the next iPad has the haswell processor with the t3 graphics

By: KenC

KenC — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:20:09 +0000

“stamped out”?!? MDN, you do realize that everyone who reads this is going to do a double-take.

By: NCG598

NCG598 — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:18:15 +0000

A blizzard is heading straight for Hell…

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:18:00 +0000

Buy AMD with their Fab’s and be done with it! That’s assuming AMD has any Fabs left. Sell those Fabs to TSMC with the understanding that Apple gets top priority over capacity. Keep AMD patents, absorb all the best talent and let the rest go. Then work on getting rid of Nvidia from all their products.

“Be water my friend”. Bruce Lee.

By: DogGoneToo

DogGoneToo — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:11:19 +0000

Smoking crack…

….A lot of it!!

By: greggthurman

greggthurman — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 20:08:42 +0000

For a variety of reasons…not going to happen.