Comments on: How Apple’s PA Semi Acquisition Fits Into Its Chip History

By: Apple and the Mini DisplayPort — RoughlyDrafted Magazine

Apple and the Mini DisplayPort — RoughlyDrafted Magazine — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 02:03:21 +0000

[...] Inside the new MacBooks: Audio and Video How Apple’s PA Semi Acquisition Fits Into Its Chip History [...]

By: WWDC 2008: New in Mac OS X Snow Leopard — RoughlyDrafted Magazine

WWDC 2008: New in Mac OS X Snow Leopard — RoughlyDrafted Magazine — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 20:43:03 +0000

[...] Why Did Apple Buy PA Semi? How Apple’s PA Semi Acquisition Fits Into Its Chip History [...]

By: Eric

Eric — Fri, 09 May 2008 04:03:03 +0000

From cost/ margin angle (which Apple is very sharp about), can only have enough economy of scale where it dominates – so likely to be chips levearging on PMP market where it already dominate (as compared to small % in PC market where the benefit of economy of scale belongs to Intel), then up to the iPhone class – so very likely chips for portable/ mobile device.

This is a battle between “Custom/ Need based” vs. “Open/ Mass based” approach

By: tehawesome

tehawesome — Sun, 04 May 2008 20:20:57 +0000

@ dentaldoc
My thinking is that hardware which is designed to specifically accelerate OS X Core technologies wouldn’t make any difference to a virtualized alternate OS: it simply wouldn’t have any way to make use of the additional hardware. As long as the implementation doesn’t alter the hardware architecture so fundamentally as to render it unusable by that virtualized OS, all that really happens is that you get a genuine hardware advantage to running OS X on the machine rather than anything else. Which leads me to an additional thought: if this accelerated hardware were to be made available through virtualisation, suddenly a Mac becomes a much more attractive machine no matter what OS you run. Apple is, after all, a hardware company.

By: dentaldoc

dentaldoc — Sun, 04 May 2008 00:37:18 +0000

As a non-professional in the computer world I will bury my face if my comment is “silly”, but it seems to be that if Apple were to start introducing several custom hardware implementations to accelerate core audio, core video, core animation, etc, wouldn’t it tend to make the Apple “boxes” less competitive and less attractive to the virtualization market (i.e., Parallels to run Windows).

It seems that as they move to custom hardware solutions for these functions, they will necessarily devote less talent toward evolving these technologies in software. Won’t it be much harder for companies like Parallels to hook into these custom chips to keep the virtualization experience snappy and transparent? It seemed like the whole reason why virtualization has been so successful is the fact that the current Apple hardware is, not identical to, but very similar to the generic Windows boxes.

By: airmanchairman

airmanchairman — Sat, 03 May 2008 18:14:23 +0000

@kovacm: That name sure is a blast from the past. Atari ST lovers will always remember the venerable TOS (Tramiel Operating System) which, like GEM, AmigaOS, DR-DOS and amazingly OS/2 totally misjudged the software threat that Microsoft posed to their futures with the PC/OEM juggernaut and sadly, sank without a trace…

By: kovacm

kovacm — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 19:10:34 +0000

xexexe… Jack Tramiel (Commodore) even gave some MOS 6052 chips for free to Wozniak and Jobs (they where collage boys) to “play” with them :)))

By: Berend Schotanus

Berend Schotanus — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 10:11:16 +0000

@John

Great explanation! I wasn’t so much aware of the competition between Intel and AMD. Your story makes perfect sense.

By: ARM, x86 Chip Makers Fight to Ride Mobile Growth — RoughlyDrafted Magazine

ARM, x86 Chip Makers Fight to Ride Mobile Growth — RoughlyDrafted Magazine — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 06:54:20 +0000

[...] ← How Apple’s PA Semi Acquisition Fits Into Its Chip History [...]

By: John Muir

John Muir — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 10:25:21 +0000

@ Berend

One word: AMD.

Microsoft engineered themselves an essential monopoly and have fought to maintain it, letting their actual wares stagnate and become self-serving and inward looking as these are the natural qualities their priorities promote.

Intel meanwhile are engineers who take pride in their work. More to the point: they never had a monopoly grip like Microsoft. No one can clone Windows and get away with it; but AMD (and others over the years) are perfectly free to make functionally equivalent processors for the PC.

I think even Intel became frustrated with the x86 long ago. Look at how many times they’ve launched alternatives on tangents. Those have all failed to date, except for the one in the majority of shipping systems now: the Core. It may be an x86 microprocessor, but it actually borrows a lot from RISC designs like the PPC and uses microcode (if I have the right name) to actually get the internal work done: “translating” x86 into something more compatible with modern design.

AMD are a vital reason behind the Core’s existence because their Athlon series – the Opteron and Athlon 64 in particular – came from behind and clobbered Intel’s troubled Pentium 4 some years ago and gave the company a challenge. Intel actually threw the P4 to the sideline and returned to the P3 designs their team in Israel had been perfecting for laptops, using these are the core to the Core. That was a giant move for a company the like of Intel. As Apple fans we’re used to agile twists and turns, but it was quite a shock to the rest of the industry and has really slammed AMD against the ropes.

Incidentally: AMD are in such a poor position again now it’s possible that Intel may respond to the decreased pressure. Heads had to roll (and internal politics had to foment) to get from the P4 to the Core. They only really did it because their rival had them by the throat. Now that they’re enjoying the rewards of their hard decisions several years ago, they may naturally be inclined to make easier choices today which will impact on the future.

Mind, if there’s one hardware maker who are best positioned to ably side-step any such issue, I think we can guess who it is.