11/06, 1:45pm
ARM Eagle to be multi-core, 28nm
ARM president Tudor Brown at a presentation on Friday provided early details of his company's next-generation architecture for smartphones and other handhelds. Nicknamed Eagle, the processor design will focus on speed and come with a multi-core main processor, "high-end" graphics and better security against hardware-related attacks. Power use will be kept down by using GlobalFoundries' new 28 nanometer process and should get more efficient still when the assembly process shrinks to 22 nanometers.
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10/28, 11:30am
Apple may see future Atom as too hungry
Apple has flatly rejected Intel's Moorestown Atom platform for being too power-hungry, a rumor claims today. Unnamed industry contacts say Intel reportedly approached Apple on its own to suggest the ultra-mobile platform but that the Mac creator rejected it outright due to power concerns. According to the Fudzilla source, Apple needed idle power consumption about ten times lower than what Moorestown can manage.
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06/16, 8:55am
Dual Core A9 and iPhone
ARM has teased the future of the iPhone and other smartphones with added early details for its first dual-core mobile processor design. The Cortex A9 will shrink the manufacturing process from the 65 nanometers used on the single-core Cortex A8 used in the iPhone 3G S to 45 nanometers, letting it add the extra core without significantly affecting the power draw. Although it consumes more energy at peak, the smaller process and multiprocessing should ultimately lead to longer battery life.
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05/21, 10:10am
Apple ARM Cortex Job
Apple has posted a job listing that hints at the company's future hardware direction for the iPhone, iPod touch and possible other devices. The position for a High Perform/Low Level Programmer asks for someone familiar not only for programming assembly-level code for ARM processors, which Apple already uses in its handhelds, but for the NEON vector math units used in the newer Cortex architecture for the mobile chips. Apple is especially concerned about experience with vector math and particularly values anyone with additional knowledge of vector units through general CPUs, such as Intel's SSE or the AltiVec units found on PowerPC G4 and G5 cores.
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04/30, 10:50am
Chip design at Apple
Not only is Apple is the middle of designing its own chips, it is experiencing some initial difficulties, claims the Wall Street Journal. The company acquired chip designers PA Semi approximately a year ago, and is acknowledged by people including CEO Steve Jobs to be using the expertise to help prepare for future multi-touch devices, namely iPods and iPhones. Such devices are expected to produce better graphics and battery consumption, while supporting special features.
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04/27, 2:05pm
Apple Hires ATI CTO
Apple has quietly signaled a new emphasis on graphics by hiring an influential graphics chipset designer from AMD. The former CTO for the company's ATI graphics product group, Bob Drebin, has indicated on his LinkedIn profile that he is now a Senior Director for an unnamed group within Apple. What products he covers are unknown, though in addition to leading GPU engineering at ATI since 2000, he also spent significant time developing products at Silicon Graphics and, during a 2-year span at ArtX, helped create the "Flipper" GPU that formed the heart of the Nintendo GameCube.
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01/05, 9:40am
Freescale Netbook ARM CPU
Freescale began its year today by introducing a new i.MX chip it hopes will gain a foothold in netbooks. The i.MX515 is based on the same ARM architecture shared by many smartphones and set-top boxes but is tuned for the higher performance of the mini notebooks, with clock speeds ranging between 600MHz and 1GHz. It also touts rare support for DDR2 memory and an integrated OpenGL graphics core capable of both 3D as well as accelerated 2D, such as video in Adobe's Flash Lite.
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12/18, 11:10am
Apple buys into IMG
Apple has made a heavy investment into another chip manufacturer, according to an announcement. The company has bought 8.2 million shares in the Imagination Technologies Group, giving it a ownership stake of 3.6 percent. IMG is perhaps best known for producing the PowerVR series of chips, used to accelerate graphics in mobile devices; as a result, Apple may now be in a position to use the chips in future iPods and iPhones, or else some unknown device.
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11/07, 5:00pm
Papermaster vs. IBM
Mark's Papermaster's new role at Apple in no way represents a threat to IBM, according to new filings. Papermaster is to replace Tony Fadell at the head of Apple's iPod group, but has been accused of violating a non-compete agreement signed when he was employed by IBM, where he helped oversee chip design. In his formal response to IBM, Papermaster claims that Apple and IBM do not compete with each other, and that his hiring was not primarily based on his work with the latter company.
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10/31, 3:00am
Apple hires IBM chip exec
An ex-IBM chip design expert is expected join Apple next month, but is facing a lawsuit from his former employer that could block his employment with the Cupertino-based company. According to the complaint, former IBM executive Mark Papermaster will join in Apple as a senior executive in what could be an attempt to make new inroads into the server market and/or bolster the company's Xserve line up. Papermaster, expected to work closely with Apple CEO Steve Jobs, is being sued by IBM to block his employment at Apple and prevent him from divulging trade secrets related to IBM's Power chips and server products.
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09/29, 3:00pm
ARM Common Platform
ARM, Chartered Semiconductor, IBM and Samsung today helped establish plans for the Common Platform, an alliance between the four companies determined to advance ARM-based processors. The group plans to use a combination of design work from all four companies as well as manufacturing from Chartered, IBM and Samsung to develop new ARM chips built on 32 nanometer and 28 nanometer manufacturing processes by using a high-k metal gate process.
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09/15, 10:25am
PA Semi Preps iPhone ARM
The staff of Apple's recently acquired PA Semiconductor are working on a new, internally developed ARM processor for the iPhone, the LinkedIn profile former PA Semi senior manager Wei-han Lien has revealed. Although now changed to abstract his work, the entry at the job connection website has slipped that he is now managing an ARM architecture team at Apple working specifically on the iPhone. The news not only suggests that a self-made design will replace the Samsung chip but that Apple has no immediate plans to use Intel's Atom processor in its smallest handhelds.
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07/30, 1:45pm
ARM License May Be Apples
Mobile chipmaker ARM has handed out a mystery architecture license for its processors, the company revealed Wednesday while discussing its latest quarterly results. The company unusually declines to say which manufacturer it may be but notes that the particular licensee is a "leading handset OEM [original equipment manufacturer]" and that the deal would give the unnamed firm much more direct control over building and using chips -- a deal the new partner wants, ARM explains.
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06/11, 10:45am
PA Semi & iPod, iPhone
The purpose of acquiring PA Semi was the creation of chips for iPhones and iPods, Apple CEO Steve Jobs has admitted. "PA Semi is going to do system-on-chips for iPhones and iPods," Jobs tells the New York Times. Although Apple has dismissed rumors that it is unhappy with Intel, or that it is planning to resurrect some PowerPC technology, it has been unclear what PA Semi was needed for other than designing chips for portable electronics.
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05/21, 7:20pm
DoD investigates PA Semi
Apple’s recent acquisition of PA Semiconductor is being reviewed by the US Department of Defense, since the latter company’s processor chipsets power many of the military’s portable devices. According to the EETimes, the acquisition left PA Semi’s future lines of processors in an uncertain state, while Apple has said it would provide legacy support for the military. The Department of Defense said the component is an important and unique part of its integrated electronics systems.
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04/25, 3:50pm
Jobs on Intel, PA Semi
Intel has nothing to fear from Apple's acquisition this week of chip designer PA Semi, says Steve Jobs. The Apple CEO has dismissed rumors that the company is looking to distance itself from Intel, a view based primarily on the fact that Intel is also involved in the kind of mobile processor technology PA specializes in. Apple depends heavily on Intel technology for its desktop and notebook computers.
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04/23, 10:55pm
Apple wants PAs technology
Apple's recent acquisition of PA Semiconductor appears to revolve around the latter company's intellectual properties and expertise, not its current products as was initially believed. AppleInsider reveals that Apple is more concerned with PA's technologies and engineers, since the semiconductor manufacturer has in the past created a dual-core 64-bit chip which only uses 15 watts of power to operate. This could allow for integration of low-consumption processors like the Intel Atom.
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04/23, 9:40am
Apple buys PA Semi
In an unusual deal, Apple has announced a decision to buy PA Semi, a microprocessor design company. An Apple spokesman, Steve Dowling, has declined to elaborate on the reasons or terms of the deal, except to say that Apple "buys smaller technology companies from time to time," and it does not comment on "purposes and plans." It is atypical however for the company to buy hardware firms, particularly as it has come to rely on ready-made components from a variety of manufacturers such as Intel, Samsung and Infineon. A source cited by Forbes claims the deal cost $278 million in cash.
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