I would go one step further. Apple is integrating their own SoC, with licensed designs CPU designs from ARM and licensed GPU designs from Imagination, among others licensed designs, which are then manufactured by TSMC or Samsung.
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Apple GPU Supplier Imagination Technologies Announces Cuts Amid Slowing iPhone Sales
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I would go one step further. Apple is integrating their own SoC, with licensed designs CPU designs from ARM and licensed GPU designs from Imagination, among others licensed designs, which are then manufactured by TSMC or Samsung.
That's not correct.
CPU design isn't licensed from ARM. They are just using licensed instructions set.
Apple is actually designing the CPU (they acquired some companies some years ago).
Is it me or is Apple the P. Diddy of the tech world? It sounds like a dream come true to work with them, but at the end of the day, they get richer and their partners are left in the welfare line. Can someone name one company that has had a profitable relationship with Apple? The TV producers see it and don't want to deal with them. The music companies had no choice. With everyone else, it's a race to the bottom.
The first sign of slowing sales and they panic and start making cuts. Why don't they put money aside in anticipation of declining sales? Nothing lasts forever and, instead of riding the gravy train, they should plan well ahead.
There are some good competitors in the mobile GPU space; AFAICT, they're losing money on mobile, too. Ironically, it seems we're oversupplied with commodity, cutting-edge stuff
What's in it for them? Imagination will already do whatever Apple wants, and gives Apple exclusive access to their highest end designs. Having Imagination independent means that the cost of new designs can be shared with lower-end companies in a way that's not possible if Imagination is inside Apple.
And, of course, if Imagination really is in trouble, the longer Apple delays buying it, the cheaper it will be...
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I don't think that's correct. Samsung, TSMC, ARM, Qualcomm, Intel all have huge Apple businesses...
Imagination's problems are largely (IMHO) self-inclicted. In particular their purchase of MIPS seems driven by hubris, not by common-sense.
They seemed to believe that they could grow MIPS into a competitor to ARM, but that was obviously a crazy idea --- there's just not large space in which MIPS has any sort ofcompetitive advantage, and how they could they compete with the sheer size of the ARM eco-system on every dimension.
I'm sure these layoffs are MIPS related; I can't see that purchase as anything but a long-term disaster. $100 Million, in early 2013. And they didn't even get the good patents; most of those were sold off earlier.
The design is probably the harder part. Once you know how the chip should be structured, adapting it to a foundry is the straightforward part--not trivial, but no reinventing of wheels required. If it were the most difficult part of "doing" the processor, then there wouldn't be two different foundries making the same product!
A bit of Apple-centric arrogance? Apple buying 'everything' besides obviously being impossible, would also be extremely ill-advised from a business standpoint.
Or, it's strategic journalism....
Bad PR, stock price drops, layoffs get rid of some of the employees that won't be needed for Apple to buy the company and it's technology, saving Apple money and dealing with the extra people they might not want/need anyway if they bring the tech in-house.
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Probably not even on the radar... if my above theory is true, he might even be involved.
Wait, don't they always slow down this time of year?
The past 4 months I've been to Cuba, Australia, China, Belize, Canada. There are iPhones EVERYWHERE.
The past 4 months I've been to Cuba, Australia, China, Belize, Canada. There are iPhones EVERYWHERE.
Correct.
The design is the harder part, but to build a foundry with the technology required to produce a modern SoC is extremely costly and time consuming.
