P.A. Semi Acquisition for iPod and iPhone Chips

[MacRumors]

In the previously referenced New York Times article, Steve Jobs revealed that Apple's acquisition of P.A. Semi will be directed at the iPod and iPhone specifically

“PA Semi is going to do system-on-chips for iPhones and iPods,”

Apple acquired P.A. Semi in late April, and reports had suggested that Apple was not interested in any of their current technology. This generated some speculation about what specific project they had in mind when acquiring the company.

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[phinnaeus]

So what, a possible Q4 iPhone3G hardware refresh?

[Small White Car]

Originally Posted by phinnaeus

So what, a possible Q4 iPhone3G hardware refresh?

Well, I doubt it, and even if they DID it would have nothing to do with this. They JUST bought them. Designing chips isn't something you do in a few weeks.

[SirOmega]

We're likely to see is these chips in the Q3 2009 refresh.

[phinnaeus]

Oh OK, gotcha.

Thanks.

[kevnaca]

I see the first chips to make it way in the iPhone in 2010, when the iPhone 4G is released. The 3G model will be around 'till then only getting a bump from 8 and 16GB to 16 and 32 GB in summer 2009. iPhone 4G will debut summer 2010 with 16 and 32GB.

[ivladster]

I knew it!!!
Apple is very smart. Im so happy they not relying on Intel!!! Go beyond Intel. In the future they will have Ads making fun of Intel Speeds comparing to Apple's. =)
Just thinking

[MattInOz]

Originally Posted by Small White Car

Well, I doubt it, and even if they DID it would have nothing to do with this. They JUST bought them. Designing chips isn't something you do in a few weeks.

True, But Apple had been working with PA semi on 'some cool' for some time when it seemed logical for them to just buy them up, to paraphrase the apple dude who made the announcement.

[bigandy]

Now it makes complete sense

[BTW]

Originally Posted by bigandy

Now it makes complete sense

Yep. I think we all already knew that though, but are hopefully for the Newton MessagePad replacement and some other totally new product lines.

[PlaceofDis]

well this certainly isn't groundbreaking, but the question remains: will they be using their chips, or just the designs and intellectual properties to build upon other chips? or both?

[retroneo]

Awesome now hopefully they PA Semi will be the first to release a Cortex-A9 quad core system on a chip.

It gives today's desktop levels of performance in the 250mW class... Amazing.

"The ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore multicore processor and ARM Cortex-A9 single core processor deliver up to 8000 DMIPS performance within a 250 mW power budget."

In fact it gives the same performance as the PA Semi PWRficient processor using 1/100th the active power consumption of this "power efficient" processor!

ARM has finished this outstanding core a while ago and is waiting for licensees to put it in their systems-on-a-chip.

They aren't interested in the PowerPC:
P.A. Semi has said that they are willing to supply their PWRficient PA6T-1682M chip on an end-of-life basis, if the Power Architecture license that P.A. Semi holds from IBM can be transferred to the acquiring company.[7]

[X38]

So, does this mean no Intel Atom for Apple, or at least the ipod & iphone?

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by X38

So, does this mean no Intel Atom for Apple, or at least the ipod & iphone?

The Atom would never work in an iPhone or iPod. It uses way to much power. The intel site says the Atom uses between 1 and 2.5 watts. How many "milli water hours" is the typical iPod battery? Then that is how many "milli-hours" of battery life you'd get assuming the smallest Atom and not other parts.

[AidenShaw]

Originally Posted by ChrisA

The Atom would never work in an iPhone or iPod.

You mean that the "Atom I" (Silverthorne) would never work in a phone or MP3 player.

Check out "Atom II" (Moorestown) and "Atom III" and ....

Intel's in the low power race for the long haul....

Perhaps Apple's buying the rights for PA Semi to build SOCs around Atom cores. That would make a lot more sense than trying to out-engineer Intel for low power systems.

Originally Posted by kornyboy

Maybe Apple will be able to further reduce the price since it now owns a manufacturer of some of the chips.

"Designer", not "manufacturer". And, Apple would be more likely to increase the profit margin than to reduce the price.

Two mistakes in one sentence

[Nicky G]

This means some SERIOUSLY hardcore pocket-sized mobile wireless devices in another 1-3 years.

[winterspan]

Originally Posted by AidenShaw

You mean that the "Atom I" (Silverthorne) would never work in a phone or MP3 player.

Check out "Atom II" (Moorestown) and "Atom III" and .... Intel's in the low power race for the long haul.... Perhaps Apple's buying the rights for PA Semi to build SOCs around Atom cores. That would make a lot more sense than trying to out-engineer Intel for low power systems.

I wouldn't call it Atom I and Atom II to not confuse people, as the processing core is not really changing. Right now, Atom requires a separate supporting chipset ("Menlow Platform"). The next version of Atom is a SoC design where the supporting chipset (memory controller, I/O hub, Wifi, display controller, digicam controller, USB controller,) is integrated directly into the processor. Although this will greatly reduce both the load and idle power consumption, it's yet to be seen how well it will compete with the newest chips from ARM.

It will be going up against the ARM Cortex-A8 and Cortex-A9 SoC's, which are available in dual-core and scale up over 1.0ghz, while using hardly any more power than the current ARM11 in the iphone.

It no doubt is going to be a great battle, and consumers will be the winners no matter what. Grab some popcorn...

[aussie_geek]

Originally Posted by AidenShaw

You mean that the "Atom I" (Silverthorne) would never work in a phone or MP3 player.

Check out "Atom II" (Moorestown) and "Atom III" and ....

Intel's in the low power race for the long haul....

Perhaps Apple's buying the rights for PA Semi to build SOCs around Atom cores. That would make a lot more sense than trying to out-engineer Intel for low power systems.




"Designer", not "manufacturer". And, Apple would be more likely to increase the profit margin than to reduce the price.

Two mistakes in one sentence

That's what i think. Apple can design their own boards and then shove an atom inside. this would definitely keep all the stuff in house.


aussie_geek

[Analog Kid]

Originally Posted by kornyboy

This makes a whole lot of sense. Maybe Apple will be able to further reduce the price since it now owns a manufacturer of some of the chips. At least in a future ipod release.

This almost certainly won't be cheaper for Apple, unless it allows them to reduce overall chip count. Apple's doing this for control, and so they can carefully tune performance.

Originally Posted by AidenShaw

Intel's in the low power race for the long haul....

Perhaps Apple's buying the rights for PA Semi to build SOCs around Atom cores. That would make a lot more sense than trying to out-engineer Intel for low power systems.

Yeah, I've heard the "long haul" promises before, then they surrendered and just bought in DECs StrongARM.

First, Intel doesn't have any history at all of licensing out their cores so it's exceedingly unlikely that PA is building around the Atom. Has Intel decided to license this one out?

Second, it hasn't been traditionally difficult to out engineer Intel in this space and, actually, just about everyone has. Intel's engineering is good, but x86 is a huge albatross around their necks as far as portable systems go-- they have to be better than good to overcome that disadvantage.

Originally Posted by Camui

There is no way we will see such MINOR increases in storage capacity in the next two years.
I highly doubt that we will see the first 32GB iPhone next summer.

I think it's impossible that they would not increase the flash memory for over a full year.

Flash density only grows so fast. So far, Samsung has been slightly ahead of Moore's law, but you're still looking at a year or more between updates.

Originally Posted by AidenShaw

Oh. I'm not sure that I'd agree that an asymmetric system with a relatively weak general purpose processor and a bunch of specialized SIMD arithmetic processors is the best system on which to learn parallel programming.

I'd suggest a quad-core, perhaps with CUDA, would be a better teaching system.

I was with you until you threw CUDA in. How is that any different than a bunch of specialized SIMD processors?

There is actually some benefit to starting people out with a weak general processor-- it will really encourage them to make use of the parallelism because the benefits will be so obvious.

Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer

I pointed this out when the acquisition happened... and most showed they know little about such by proclaiming Atom.

Therefore, ``I fart in your general direction.''

Actually, what you said was:

Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer

I would look to the Enterprise Markets and Middle-tier mid-to-large markets that can leverage XServe and Xsan with replacement products that do much more than XRaid.

Originally Posted by mdriftmeyer

Think larger networking iron ala data switches, multimedia streaming, embedded devices for the Health Industries, Federal industries, etc.
...

[MacGohil]

This was kinda obvious on the day wen Apple acquired PA-Semi. They had acquired the IP and not the current chip-line up.

We will see more tightly knit and power efficient handhelds.

Way to go

[mdriftmeyer]

and most showed they know little about such by proclaiming Atom.

Therefore, ``I fart in your general direction.''

[twoodcc]

so new ipods coming?

[morespce54]

What???
I never saw that one coming!

[Sabon]

Yes Steve Jobs said that they were bought for iPhone/iPod chips. He didn't say Apple bought them for ALL of the iPhone/iPod chips or the entire system board.

The main thing is finding places in those devices that are not fully optimized for performance and power.

The other half is making it so that Microsoft can't continue to buy all the same hardware that Apple is and create another copy cat known at the Zune so easily. Microsoft won't know the specs of these new chips or the programming used for them. Making it hard for other companies with less brains, or at least less ability to use those brains to their fullest, won't be able to copy so easily.

Speaking of copying. You heard about that company, or at least we did at first, that created a Mac clone to run Leopard on ... I would be VERY surprised if Apple didn't also buy PA for custom chips for Macs too so that this can't be done either. The idea would be to ramp up how much it would cost to make a clone until it isn't affordable.

As for what chips will run in any Apple products ... I DO NOT expect them to come out with a cell processor based Mac. BUT I would NOT BE surprised in future years to find out that they have a version of OS X (we don't use "Mac" in the name anymore apparently) that runs on a PS3 or at least cell processors.

This is not to start rumors. Apple had OS X running on Intel chips long before they came out with a computer running on it. Yes this was of course brought over from nExt but Steve Jobs is smarter and knows how to hedge his bets.

Why would he do this other than just doing this? The best reason is parallel computing. There is no better way to learn parallel computing then learning how to program it for the best affordable parallel system out there. What they could learn on that system now could pay HUGE dividends on learning how to program OS X (even for iPhones/iPods) for future Intel with custom PA chips.

[AidenShaw]

Originally Posted by Sabon

There is no better way to learn parallel computing then learning how to program it for the best affordable parallel system out there.

Do you mean an HP or Dell quad-core mini-tower?



(below)

Originally Posted by Sabon

I mean a PS3 which runs on the cell processor set which is setup in parallel.

Oh. I'm not sure that I'd agree that an asymmetric system with a relatively weak general purpose processor and a bunch of specialized SIMD arithmetic processors is the best system on which to learn parallel programming.

I'd suggest a quad-core, perhaps with CUDA, would be a better teaching system.