Apple's Expanded Presence in Israel Focused on Chip Design

MacRumors · Feb 26, 2015

Following Apple CEO Tim Cook's visit to Israel this week, the company's increasing interest in the country is said to relate to chip design, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Apple recently opened new research and development offices in Israel north of Tel Aviv, with the facilities serving as the iPhone maker's second-largest R&D operations outside of the United States.

"Apple's Israeli acquisitions and its expanding local workforce show that the company is becoming more and more independent on the chip level, where it once had to rely on external suppliers," said Shlomo Gradman, chairman of the Israeli Semiconductor Club.

Apple may be looking to increase development of chips internally to the costs associated with relying on third-party suppliers, although it still relies heavily on vendors such as Samsung to produce chips for iPhones. Apple has acquired two Israel-based microprocessor chip design firms in Anobit Technologies and PrimeSense in recent years, and also hired several Texas Instrument engineers in Israel after the company announced some 250 job cuts at its Ra'anana offices.

Apple vice president of hardware technologies Johny Srouji is an Israeli Arab that grew up in Haifa and earned both a bachelor's and master's degree in Computer Science from Technion, Israel's Institute of Technology. Srouji joined Apple in 2008 and oversees custom silicon architecture and development covering several devices and technologies. Apple has over 700 other employees working directly for the company in Israel.

"We've hired our first individual in Israel in 2011 and we now have over 700 people working in Israel directly for us," said Apple CEO Tim Cook in the meeting with Israeli president Reuven Rivlin on Wednesday. "Israel and Apple have gotten much closer together over the last three years than ever before, and we see that as just the beginning," he added.

Apple has job listings in Israel for a number of chip-related positions in the fields of silicon and semiconductor design, testing and engineering. The company has also been hiring staff to work at its chip design center in Haifa over the past three years. Google, Facebook, IBM, HP and hundreds of other international companies have also setup R&D centers in Israel, often following acquisitions of local companies.

Article Link: Apple's Expanded Presence in Israel Focused on Chip Design

Santabean2000 · Feb 26, 2015

All this heavy dev in chip design is starting to pay off. V interesting to see how far Apple will push it.

Exciting times ahead!

PowerBook-G5 · Feb 26, 2015

After seeing the power of the A8X in the iPad Air 2, I can't wait to see what they pull off with the A9 or A9X for later this year! An iPhone 6S with 2GB RAM and an A9 chip will be a true powerhouse!

Rogifan · Feb 26, 2015

So are these employees responsible for the S1 SiP in the Watch?

whooleytoo · Feb 26, 2015

Very interesting to hear this. Apple typically doesn't do a lot of engineering outside of the US. They did/do some localisation in Ireland, plus some development & QA, and they designed at least one model of Mac; but most of that was years ago. I know they did QA and possibly localisation in Japan too, also heard rumours of a Russian Apple plant.

I wonder what Israel is "doing right" that other countries aren't. More small startups? Better education? Government incentives?

Ivan0310 · Feb 26, 2015

Does this mean that certain components may bare the phrase 'Designed by Apple in Israel'?

PinkyMacGodess · Feb 26, 2015

Faster chips, coupled with an optimized and streamlined iOS would be a great idea. There are times my iPad 4 gets rather laggy, and my Mini is worse. And they still sell the 'original' Mini. Why? It has a hard enough time running the latest version of iOS.

It's perhaps time for a rewrite of the whole thing to remove the dust and cobwebs, and get it running like it should.

I'm afraid that iOS is going the way of Windows, where even the fastest ships are being consumed by the random junk, making them seem slow far to early in their life spans.

But anyway...

Eraserhead · Feb 26, 2015

Ivan0310 said:
Does this mean that certain components may bare the phrase 'Designed by Apple in Israel'?

I doubt it. You'd get a boycott from half the world.

DynaFXD · Feb 26, 2015

Too bad that Apple couldn't be this chummy with an Israeli company/resource when they had the chance to acquire Waze. As I heard it, Google got their grubby mitts on Waze when they agreed to keep development in Israel for an extended period going forward. Now I get ads for some junk food place every time I hit a light. Nothing like being another data point for Google to sell to advertisers <grumble>

Oh and to be on topic new chips, good. Moore's law and all that.

Weaselboy · Feb 26, 2015

[Mod Note]

I have removed several posts that were political in nature. Please keep the discussion on topic and not about politics.

Infinitewisdom · Feb 26, 2015

Very excited to see what Apple has in store on the chip front.

And on another note, thought it was odd that Macrumors had to mention that the VP was an Israeli Arab. Who cares?

balamw · Feb 26, 2015

Infinitewisdom said:
And on another note, thought it was odd that Macrumors had to mention that the VP was an Israeli Arab. Who cares?

Apparently the WSJ source article also thought it was relevant.

WSJ said:
Mr. Srouji, an Israeli Arab who grew up in Haifa, joined Apple in 2008. He is accompanying Mr. Cook on his current visit. He is also regarded as the person who led Apples expansion in Israel.

MOD NOTE: If you wish to discuss more general issues of the geopolitical situation in the area, please take it to PRSI. This thread is about a particular business deal Apple has undertaken.

B

wizard · Feb 26, 2015

PowerBook-G5 said:
After seeing the power of the A8X in the iPad Air 2, I can't wait to see what they pull off with the A9 or A9X for later this year! An iPhone 6S with 2GB RAM and an A9 chip will be a true powerhouse!

If they move to 14 nm it will be a cool powerhouse. ####

More seriously I couldn't agree with you more, if all the technologies come together correctly A9 will be very impressive. With all of that extra die space the questions become what will Apple do with those transistors. Will the cell/LTE processor be moved on chip? More ARM cores? Radically improved GPUs? Huge cache/RAM buffers? LPDDR 4 support? All of the above?

We have to figure on more than doubling of chip space here if A9 gets to 14 nm that just allows the imagination to run wild. IPhone 6 has been championed due to it refinements and performance but A9 could dramatically alter the iPhones internals. This could deliver significant power savings, thus longer battery life, all while boosting performance more than 20%. We are talking Mac Book Air performance in your hand.

----------

whooleytoo said:
Very interesting to hear this. Apple typically doesn't do a lot of engineering outside of the US. They did/do some localisation in Ireland, plus some development & QA, and they designed at least one model of Mac; but most of that was years ago. I know they did QA and possibly localisation in Japan too, also heard rumours of a Russian Apple plant.

I wonder what Israel is "doing right" that other countries aren't. More small startups? Better education? Government incentives?

Well the government there is certainly focused on developing the economy! They also aren't affraid of education and have produced some really good schools in that country in a short time.

However one big factor is emigration, people from all over the world have moved to Isreal of late. In many cases to escape leftist governments but also to escape failed states. Think Russia when thinking failed stares here.

Emigration is an important factor because people that desire to leave one country to go to another are often highly motivated. So if you have a bunch of highly motivated people from all over the world willing to work, you have a massive amount of diversity to choose from. Diversity and high motivation can be very useful to bleeding edge technology companies.

thekeyring · Feb 26, 2015

PinkyMacGodess said:
Faster chips, coupled with an optimized and streamlined iOS would be a great idea. There are times my iPad 4 gets rather laggy, and my Mini is worse. And they still sell the 'original' Mini. Why? It has a hard enough time running the latest version of iOS.

It's perhaps time for a rewrite of the whole thing to remove the dust and cobwebs, and get it running like it should.

I'm afraid that iOS is going the way of Windows, where even the fastest ships are being consumed by the random junk, making them seem slow far to early in their life spans.

But anyway...

I agree: From the number of complaints I've seen, iOS 8 seems buggier than your average iOS release.

However, it's worth noting iOS devices do not run the fastest chips. I've seen people scoff at how "weak" or "slow" the iPhone processor is. iOS is optimised really well to run on the chips, giving you similar performance of an Android running on a high-end Snapdragon.

Also, given that Apple still sell the iPad mini, and iPod touch, both with A5 processors, and the rumours that iOS 9 will focus on optimisation, performance and bug-fixes, I think this is temporary.

Silencio · Feb 26, 2015

whooleytoo said:
I wonder what Israel is "doing right" that other countries aren't. More small startups? Better education? Government incentives?

Israel has had a lot of chip design talent for a long time. Some may recall that the Intel team that designed the Pentium M, which became the basis for the Core series, was based in Israel. So, I don't know that it's something that recent governments have done or not, but the engineering talent in that country is not new.

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/how-israel-saved-intel/

OhadI · Feb 26, 2015

Eraserhead said:
I doubt it. You'd get a boycott from half the world.

Half of the world can keep shutting their eyes...
Did you check where all Intel's 'i' processors have been developed?
Almost all major technology companies have R&D facilities in Israel.

Imory · Feb 26, 2015

thekeyring said:
However, it's worth noting iOS devices do not run the fastest chips. I've seen people scoff at how "weak" or "slow" the iPhone processor is. iOS is optimised really well to run on the chips, giving you similar performance of an Android running on a high-end Snapdragon.

That's fortunately not true, at all. The iPhone has always been one of the best devices in terms of pure hardware every year it has been released. Where did you get that iOS devices don't run the fastest chips? That's a blatant lie.

ScottHammet · Feb 26, 2015

whooleytoo said:
Very interesting to hear this. Apple typically doesn't do a lot of engineering outside of the US. They did/do some localisation in Ireland, plus some development & QA, and they designed at least one model of Mac; but most of that was years ago. I know they did QA and possibly localisation in Japan too, also heard rumours of a Russian Apple plant.

I wonder what Israel is "doing right" that other countries aren't. More small startups? Better education? Government incentives?

Just a guess, but I'd bet it has something to do with their ability to keep a secret. You don't hear of a lot of media leaks coming out of Israel for other technology companies that are there...and there are quite a few.

thekeyring · Feb 26, 2015

Imory said:
That's fortunately not true, at all. The iPhone has always been one of the best devices in terms of pure hardware every year it has been released. Where did you get that iOS devices don't run the fastest chips? That's a blatant lie.

Snapdragon processors are clocked faster and have more cores. Obviously the chips still perform well, because iOS is optimised for them.

It was not a "blatant lie", but rather a misunderstand of the word "fastest". What is it with people on this forum jumping down your throat?

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/techno...ster-than-8-core-android-phones/1/408834.html

Keirasplace · Feb 26, 2015

thekeyring said:
Snapdragon processors are clocked faster and have more cores. Obviously the chips still perform well, because iOS is optimised for them.

It was not a "blatant lie", but rather a misunderstand of the word "fastest". What is it with people on this forum jumping down your throat?

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/techno...ster-than-8-core-android-phones/1/408834.html

They're slower by all real measures at the time of release, simple as that; latency especially is very low on IOS devices. There's been quite a bit of teeth gnashing about that already here so dig out the old tread, I'm not going there anymore.

It is not simply optimization with the OS. The A chips have a lot more cache, are 64 bit and can sustain performance for more than a few seconds (because they are clocked low). Most work is done in one core on a cell phones, well guess which CPU has the best single core score on a phone.

More core means nothing since they can't operate all at the same time and scheduling is inefficient.

LordVic · Feb 26, 2015

OhadI said:
Half of the world can keep shutting their eyes...
Did you check where all Intel's 'i' processors have been developed?
Almost all major technology companies have R&D facilities in Israel.

People liek to form biases and stick to them. Middle east strife is no different. There's so much ignorance online regarding the entire region (on both sides), that reasonable discussion and discourse in the subject matter always ends up disintegrating into veiled racism.

But the simple fact of the matter, despite all of this, Israel, has historically been the most progressive country in the middle east and has a very, VERY strong post secondary education system that encourages Science development. Historically, Israel has been one of the western leaders in scientifiic reasearch and technological advances in semi-conductor and computing technologies as well as thousands of others.

Eraserhead · Feb 26, 2015

OhadI said:
Half of the world can keep shutting their eyes...
Did you check where all Intel's 'i' processors have been developed?
Almost all major technology companies have R&D facilities in Israel.

I know, but Intel keeps that quiet. Apple is a company people buy from directly, and one that attracts a lot of attention, so what they get up to directly is more likely to be noticed.

Apple also mostly sells products that are "nice to have" rather than an essential so they are an easy company to boycott.

bluespark · Feb 26, 2015

balamw said:
Apparently the WSJ source article also thought it was relevant.

B

What a silly defense. Is relevance of no concern for MacRumors so long as it can take cover behind an editorial decision made by another publication? Also, politics are very relevant to the WSJ's audience. Yet, you specifically admonished readers in this thread to avoid politics. Thus, the WSJ's relevance determination should be of no moment here.

Imory · Feb 26, 2015

thekeyring said:
Snapdragon processors are clocked faster and have more cores. Obviously the chips still perform well, because iOS is optimised for them.

It was not a "blatant lie", but rather a misunderstand of the word "fastest". What is it with people on this forum jumping down your throat?

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/techno...ster-than-8-core-android-phones/1/408834.html

Did I jump down your throat? I don't feel like I did, but if you felt that, then I apologize.

However, I do advise you that if you decide to state something in a very convinced fashion with very little sense of disbelief, then you better back it up.

Core and clock speed mean very little. They mean as little or as much as megapixels do when you talk about cameras.

I personally advise you to read Anandtechs reviews of each iPhone if you truly want to get an in-depth look on how their SoC's work. Not only does Anandtech review tech very thoroughly, but they are widely considered to be the best in tech journalism with a respectable amount of integrity. I'd argue that they're actually alone at the top.

I'm afraid it is a lie to imply that iPhones are delivered with inferior chips.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8554/the-iphone-6-review

aaronvan · Feb 26, 2015

Not that surprising. Israel has been a high-tech hub for some time.

Apple's Expanded Presence in Israel Focused on Chip Design

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