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Google Hires Veteran Chip Designer Away From Apple to Build Custom Chips For Pixel Smartphones

BC2009 said:
A10X has 6 cores, not 4.
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It's (A10X) actually a tri-core rather than hexa-core (six core). Apple's A10 chip takes a different approach compared to ARM stock design (big.LITTLE). Instead of being heterogenous, with the A10/A10X only 2 (out of 4) or 3 (out of 6) cores are active at once.
 
Competition. Everyone wins

lets see what Google does. They have added a lot to mobile, so hopefully we see a different take from them or a certain differentiation that adds to mobile chips.
 
This is a shame, it seems strange for him top leave Apple but we don't know the reasoning. He appears to have been an important person in the team, and their results recently are phenomenal
 
Quu said:
Keep in mind that the architect of the A4 and A5 (or at-least one of the "rockstar" chip designers of our time) Jim Keller left Apple after he worked on those and joined Samsung, AMD and now Tesla. He was instrumental in designing the new Zen architecture for AMD that is giving them a huge resurgence.

But the key thing is he left after the A5 and Apple has since created the A6, A7, A8, A9 and A10. All amazing without him being present.
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What about this guy? The other Jony? :)

https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-johny-srouji-apple-chief-chipmaker/
 
Quu said:
My prediction: They come out with a chip in 3 years it underperforms compared to the competition, Google axes it and we never hear of this guy ever again.
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Yes... sadly that is the Google way. Just ask many of the Motorola hires that thought that Google was serious about going up against the major Android OEMs of the day such as HTC, Huawei, LG, Samsung, Sony, Xiaomi and ZTE.

However, I think that Google is more serious with the Pixel than it was with Motorola. Samsung has played its Tizen card, and it has turned out to be a damp squid. Windows, despite now being free for screens smaller than 9 inches, is no longer a viable option for many of the major OEMs. The likes of Samsung, LG, HTC and Sony, all who have made Windows phones in the past, are out of cards to play to threaten or prevent Google from entering the market with their own premium hardware.

If Google is as serious about the Pixel line as this hire implies they are, then there is no reason why they cannot be a as big as Samsung and Apple in the premium handset market
 
geenosr said:
As long as Mr. Gulati doesn't break any of the patents that apple owns, I wish him good luck at google.
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Yep, people move all the time. Like a few years back, when Apple hired one of Samsung's top SOC designers.

Kabeyun said:
Folks who post about how Apple uniquely poaches others' employees, take note.
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I don't think anyone says that Apple "uniquely" poaches other employees. Although they are known for sometimes coaxing away all the key members of a small company that won't sell itself to them.

In cases like this, though, it's often simply because someone isn't getting to do what they really want, so they jump ship to somewhere they can.
 
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kdarling said:
Yep, people move all the time. Like a few years back, when Apple hired one of Samsung's top SOC designers.



I don't think anyone says that Apple "uniquely" poaches other employees. Although they are known for sometimes coaxing away all the key members of a small company that won't sell itself to them.

In cases like this, though, it's often simply because someone isn't getting to do what they really want, so they jump ship to somewhere they can.
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I don't worry about the "top" guys leaving. They seldom make any difference. It's the workhorse mid-level geniuses that get it all done. On a design where there are 100 engineers, 10 of them make a real difference. The Vice Presidents and senior managers usually don't make much difference. Of course, there are still 10, and you can get away with losing 1 or 2. And for every 10 new kids you hire out of college, 1 or 2 will end up filling that spot in a year after they learn to use the professional tools.

Back in the day, Manu and I both were block leads on k8. There were around 5 or 6 of us, I guess. (
My memory on this is weak). I moved on to methodology and chip-level stuff, then EDA and advanced development manager. Don't recall what happened to him, though I think he went to Broadcom at some point before apple. There were always people we all knew were the truly critical people, and then there were always people who got the press and did the public speaking and wrote the papers. Sometimes they overlapped, but probably a lot less often than you would think.
 
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cmaier said:
I don't worry about the "top" guys leaving. They seldom make any difference. It's the workhorse mid-level geniuses that get it all done.
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Yepper. That's why I'm usually more interested in reading the history and thoughts of the grunts who actually worked all night, tweaking something until it worked right.

Edit: oops, rest was meant for the Book thread, not this one. Sorry, removed.
 
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