“Apple likely will be taking a hand in designing the ARM-based processors it now buys from rival handset maker Samsung, using an in-house team of chip designers led by Papermaster. “I would look for PA Semi to play a role, and for Papermaster to be a leader of that,” says Roger Kay, president of tech tracker Endpoint Technologies Associates,” Brian Caulfield reports for Forbes.
Apple CEO Steve Jobs “has never been content selling products that can be easily copied by his competitors. Apple reported that it sold 6.9 million iPhones in the most recent quarter, surpassing the 6.8 million sales tallied by rival Research in Motion,” Caulfield reports.
MacDailyNews Take: Incorrect. This is at least the second time that Caulfield has mistakenly reported that RIM sold 6.8 million units last quarter when, in fact, RIM sold 6.1 million units; 700,000 units less than the amount Caulfield insists on repeatedly reporting. Whether he’s just repeating his original mistake or trying to pump RIM’s numbers and/or diminish Apple’s thumping of RIM is unknown. We’d just like Caulfield to finally get it right for a change. For some reason, we suspect he will from now on:
Caulfield continues, “Jobs plans to take control of the design of the processors inside the company’s iPhone, and putting a chip designer in charge of engineering the iPhone platform is the surest sign of that.”
Full article here.
Papermaster has experience building blade servers. Why on earth would Apple but him in charge of ultra-low-power chip development?
Did someone think that Apple was going to do something else other that design the main chips in their devices when they purchased PA Semi?
Clueless … PA Semi was picked up to design chips. That is what they do.
exciting stuff
don’t forget Roger Kay also isn’t an Apple-friendly analyst. He usually has an angle. Is he trying to give IBM ammo for their lawsuit?
@Foolidiot
Duh, rack mounted iPhones. Imagine, farm of iPhones, orgasmic
As stated in an earlier MDN article
The PowerPC 630 (or Power3) was ultimately used in IBM mainframe computers but was originally built with the intention of going in desktops – perhaps Apple’s. Papermaster was one of the main architects of this processor,” Weintraub reports. “Since then, he has authored many papers on chip design and is generally regarded as one of the leaders in the chip design field.”
It seems the bloggers who said the iPhone was more a new platform than a phone are being proved correct ***cough JC Dvorak*** – new design plant, new leadership, new expertise, new SDK, ranges from iPod to Phone/Music/Internet, multi-touch input, etc.
Maybe Papermaster needs to pull up the pirate flag over the iPod division.
Most consumers could give two shits about what chip is running their iPhone. Differentiating the end user experience is the ultimate goal, but I think it is a stretch to believe that a custom chipset will get you there.
“This is at least the second time that Caulfield has mistakenly reported that RIM sold 6.8 million units”
Oh and I suppose you’re going to get in a snit about Voting Machine Accuracy too!
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Papermaster was on the original Power PC design team and worked very closely with Apple’s chip engineers.
@ Cubert;
If you believe people won’t react positively to faster, more responsive devices that use less power (providing longer battery life), then I must say “What a Strange World you live in!”, because thats the entire point of designing custom chipsets.
Can you say “Even more complete integrated hardware/software solution”?
I knew you could.
The PowerPC never was bad…Motorola just never cared about Apple enough to work with them. Apple sold their ARM holdings even before they dropped the PowerPC. They had a plan along time ago.
I can’t believe Apple would hire a chip designer at the VP level to direct the company they bought in the hope they could design a new CPU for their iPhone. Hire someone with chip design experience, perhaps, but not a CHIP DESIGNER. The difference being that one recognizes good work and might be able to suggest directions for the work to go while the other does the actual work.
This does suggest that Apple wants to step up and design its own chips for its own phone. Though it has not gone that route in the past. (it was a part of the PPC design group) Perhaps they are not satisfied with the available low-power chips? Perhaps they want to make it easier to support a full OSX on the smaller platform? Motive is what it is, I doubt Papermaster was hired as a chip designer.
I don’t see the purpose of Apple doing their own chips.
Why create a new processor or chip, if in a near future intel will have a new chip atom for mobile devices?
What is the reason for coding mac os x for intel (macs) and another architecture? I know that they do it now already with arm but I not converge to all intel ?
” I know that they do it now already with arm but why not converge to all intel ?”
Sorry for the mistake above.
Joao: Try googling “atom sucks”.
@Paul Johnson
Ah ok, I see your point now ;P