“Apple says it bought P.A. Semi to get its hands on some patents and a bunch of very bright engineers who are already used to working together. I’m sure that’s true – but they also got an irresistible opportunity to shake the money tree while doing something good for the country,” Paul Murphy blogs for ZDNet.
“P.A. Semi designs PPC chips primarily for advanced military and robotics applications and the one they talk about in public, the PA6T-1682M, has had an unprecedented uptake in the industry – so much so that major defense contractors include Lockheed Martin and Curtis-Wright have locked in ten year supply contracts on it,” Murphy writes. “The chip itself is impressive: it’s a 15 watt, 2+Ghz, dual core, dual Altivec, 64bit PPC “system on a chip” with 2MB of level 2 cache per core, hardware packet management (including cryptology), on board memory busing, and eight concurrent PCI/E channels.”
“Why would Apple use it in a laptop? Because Apple has been facing pressure from U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) customers for more secure (i.e. non x86) gear that’s made in America and because all of P.A. Semi’s big customers are long term experts at selling to the DOD. In other words, what Apple really wanted here was technical expertise, but what they got along with it was specific market expertise and a golden opportunity to sell from three to five hundred thousand American made, PPC based, MacOS X machines to the DOD every year,” Murphy writes.
Paul Murphy is betting that Apple will make PPC laptops again. Read the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: 3Ghz within a year!
I thought Steve Jobs said, flat out, that they are not going to make PPC computers in an interview the other day…
What would prevent Apple from creating specific hardware for the military that wouldn’t be open to the public?
That the military is involved just adds another layer of secrecy and deception on top of Apple’s already uber-secretive approach to product development.
They ARE continuing to develop PPC distros of OSX, but I think its more likely they will take the tech and cross develop it into an x86 chip; we’ll see.. either way this is just another logical step
They are not going to make PPC laptops again. Period.
Govt to apple: “We want some of that gui awsomeness in r apps and osses yo!”
apple to govt: “ok, but we need this ship company to do it right”
govt to apple: “kai”
Intel cannot get much higher Ghz out of its chips – too hot.
Apple needs to be planning for an alternative….
2gig dual core PPC? It sure would be fun to run some performance tests against my MacBook with a 2gig dual core x86 intel, with all other specs equal. If the pre intel arguments for PPC’s being more capable at slower clock speeds is true, then that dual core PPC should kick ass.
Sure is cool the way OSX is written such that the processor architecture is not such a big deal. PPC on old macs, Intel on new macs. ARM processors on the iPhone, OSX works ’em all.
Why not make PPC and Intel? Heck, the OS runs on both right now, why not just keep it that way? Why get locked into a particular chip again?
I’m sure that if Apple could make a PPC notebook using some sort of new PPC chip that would make it thinner, lighter, faster and have a battery life a lot longer than the MacBook Air, then people would buy that.
I think that the security aspects of these designs and patents are the major issue here. Hardware based security measures that only a vertically structured tech company can employ easily could be crucial to Apple in the coming years to protect the OS from attack be it in computers or mobile technology.
this is just plain dumb, concluding that they’ll make PPC laptops again. there are many kinds of chips that go into an electronic product, not just CPUs…
http://blogs.wsj.com/biztech/2008/04/24/jobs-still-hearts-intel/?mod=WSJBlog
“Jobs said Apple acquired P.A. Semi mainly for its chip designers and suggested it will rely on P.A. Semi’s expertise primarily for portable electronics devices like the iPod and iPhone for which Intel doesn’t currently supply chips”
“Jobs said Apple, though, has no plans to go back to Power chips.”
Isn’t someone forgetting that it’s not the x86 chip that’s not secure, but the Windows that’s running on it that’s full of holes?
Or is Murphy trying to say that OS X is as vulnerable as Windows because it’s running on an X86 chip?
no way are they moving back to ppc, this chip maker is for the iPhone and future iPods
Resurrection of PPC Macs? Sounds RISCy to me.
“The chip itself is impressive: it’s a 15 watt, 2+Ghz, dual core, dual Altivec, 64bit PPC “system on a chip” with 2MB of level 2 cache per core, hardware packet management (including cryptology), on board memory busing, and eight concurrent PCI/E channels.”
All this techie talk is giving me a stiffie.
You speculating diddlysquat fools, who cares why they bought it. Apple makes money and money is honey. End of story.
can you imagine how pissed the developers would be? Adobe and the like? Spending all that time moving millions of lines of code over for Intel processors? Uff-da!
geez this has gotten my attention…
There’s going to be devices from Apple with leopard that doesn’t have bootcamp or theres no option to put windows on it.
Can someone possibly point this to mac tablet?
Apple will have DEVICES that use PPC. The main PUBLICLY AVAILABLE device will be iPhone, but some proprietary devices for mil and gov use only will be in the pipeline.
EricDano said, “Why not make PPC and Intel? Heck, the OS runs on both right now, why not just keep it that way? Why get locked into a particular chip again?”
I agree. Apple’s Xcode, etc. can compile Universal apps (think about this for a second), so why not make both and offer a choice to the consumer?
With regards to the MacBook and MacBook Pro – do it! Lower heat and longer battery time as a result. Go for it, Apple!
I think that is great! Helping out the DOD and putting some more money in their pockets, More power to them!
Well, I think it’s a bit of a stretch to say we’ll see PPC laptops soon, but one should never say never. PA Semi with 150 engineers & designers was a steal at $278M and the worth the investment for the speculation and industry confusion alone. There’s little chance anyone will know what these guys will really be working on for Apple until the product(s) are released because this group has the potential to create anything from human interface chips and hardware accelerators all the way up to major Intel killing CPU’s
WTG Apple – The Company I Love to Watch!
I can see how this would make sense. The DoD would value doing business with a company which has a proven track record of keeping secrets.
And even though x86 CPUs aren’t “insecure” on their own, the fact is that pretty much all of today’s malware runs on x86, either directly under Windows or indirectly via Wine. So, to the paranoid mind, closing even that small loophole by using computers with PowerPC CPUs instead would make sense.
Forget about it. There’s a reason that the DOD wants something diff than x86….they wont allow Apple to sell the same chip in a consumer product. It protects them from all kinds of crap. I work for one of the companies mentioned and can say with confidence that it wont happen. And PPC in a laptop??! Don’t you people remember why the PowerBook G5 never happened? cmon now…..
This clown doesn’t know what he’s talking about