“Was that maybe, just maybe, a chip aimed at a forthcoming PowerBook that Freescale Semiconductor was talking about? Apparently not–or at least not yet. In a presentation at this week’s Fall Processor Forum, Freescale, the former chipmaking unit of Motorola, disclosed plans to produce a dual-core version of its PowerPC chip that it said was aimed primarily at networking applications,” Arik Hesseldahl reports for Forbes. “…Adding a second core essentially turns one single chip into two without significantly boosting power consumption.”
“But news of Freescale’s impending presentation of a dual-core version of its e600 chip, (e600 is the new name for the line of chips that used to be called G4), prompted a bit of speculation that perhaps a new Mac-oriented chip with two cores might have been in the offing, which would indeed be news,” Hesseldahl reports.
“The Freescale chip’s power consumption is also low enough, in the range of 15 to 25 watts, that it could be used inside a high-end laptop computer such as Apple’s PowerBook,” Hesseldahl reports. “When asked about the speculation, an Apple spokeswoman said the company routinely declines to comment about its future plans for microprocessors. But that was the same thing the company said two years ago when IBM was talking about the chip that ultimately landed in the G5.”
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews article:
Motorola to detail dual-core PowerPC G4, could be next leap for Mac laptops – August 18, 2004
New Freescale 90nm G4 processor likely to find home in Apple PowerBook, iBook – September 28, 2004