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Apple Switched Chips Too Soon?
Ctrl+Alt+De1337 writes "C|Net is reporting that IBM has announced a method of altering silicon that will allow its next generation of Power chips to run at speeds between 4 and 5 gigahertz, and consume less power as well. From the article: 'Instead of just making transistors smaller, IBM came up with a process to alter how silicon behaves by placing a layer of insulator underneath a layer of silicon less than 500 atoms thick ... The higher speed of the Power6 will be achieved with existing chip manufacturing technology that etches transistors only 65 nanometers wide, several hundred times smaller than a human blood cell.' These won't be out until 2007, but it still raises the question: did Apple jump the gun by switching to Intel?"
Apple switched because Intel offers a better deal right now. When IBM offers a better deal, Apple can pretty well switch to (note: switch to, not switch back) this new chip.
Apple would be silly sticking to an inferior product for 2 more years.
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No, it was the best thing to do, instead of having one company as a supplier they now got at least 2 , AMD and Intel. I think we get better and cheaper Apple boxes out of the x86 move.
Its not all about performance either, its the ability to ship large quantities of chips also, if you want to grab a larger market share.
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I thought the idea of Universal Binaries was that the packages were compiled for multiple architectures, selectable at runtime? The same binaries are now running on Macintels and G5s, so Apple should be able to continue running apps on either architecture...
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IBM was facing a pretty big loss of business, and would have let Apple know before the official announcement. Apple knew, and decided to switch anyway.
No way did Apple jump the gun. Both Apple and their users wanted more speed, especially in their mobile products, and Intel delivered on that today - not in mid-2007. I see in no way how a chip process that wont be available until 2007 is compared against a decision made in 2005. I think anyone in the right mind can see why Apple made the switch in the first place.
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This is one subtle, yet important distinction. Apple has added the intel processor to their lineup, but they haven't abandoned the PPC architecture. Although Steve et al. have implied a complete switch through the various pr statements made on the subject, Apple could just as easily stick with both chips indefinitely. Or they could retreat back to PPC if intel suddenly died and IBM came out with a blockbuster. That is of course if Intel doesn't lift this technology from IBM for their own chips in the future. Which they will.
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How is this chip different?
And what would it cost?
With Intel, Apple gets a low-cost chip that they can use NOW, in their laptops and desktops. They get low-power consumption today, and low-heat today. Not in 2009, when the POWER6 chip has been tamed... Or hell, maybe never, AGAIN.
So yes, this seems like a good chip. But it doesn't really affect the reasons that Apple changed. It doesn't say it's a good chip for laptops, and they would still need to change the architecture of their systems. AND they'd have to stick with a company that was creating lower yields.
Plus, this writeup makes it sound like IBM didn't tell Apple that they were about to make POWER6 chips. I'm sure they knew, and I'm sure they realized the advantages and disadvantages.
The Power6 chip will compete against offerings from IBM rivals such as Intel, Advanced Micro Devices and Sun Microsystems...But the process also tends to make chips run hotter
So these are server chips. The area of Apple's lineup that was suffering the worst was their laptop line. These breakthroughs from IBM don't address that at all.
No, Apple did not switch too soon.
Remember, we (the loyal Apple customers) have been waiting for a significant increase in computing power within the portable market.
IBM made promises to Apple but were unable to deliver on those promises. Remember the statements about 3 GHz within a year? Apple couldn't sit by while IBM broke promise after promise on upcoming product lines.
If Apple had waited any longer, they would have lost momentum in the portables market, and in turn the desktop computer market, eventually pulling down the servers and everything else with it.
On the other hand, Apple could always keep their servers on the IBM product line. I doubt they would, but it's always a possibility. Apple might just not be done with the PPC for good.
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One) It doesn't "beg the question". Begging the question is a logical fallacy in which you assume, implicitly or explicitly, the very thing you are trying to prove.
Two) Apple primarily switched because the laptop-suitable G4 line speeds had been stagnant forever. Freescale's 7448 is over a year late and counting. PA Semi's everything and the kitchen sink promises are still vapour-ware. And IBM couldn't provide a G5 that ran cool enough to put in a laptop.
This technology won't be out in the Power6 until 2007 if everything goes as planned, a never-safe assumption when it comes to IBM's fabs. Add more time to that for them to retool the Power6 into a desktop-suitable G6. So in return for not switching, Apple would have to leave their desktop speeds stagnant for another year, and still have no guarantee of any new chips to offer in their laptop line.
Selling 1.42 Ghz, 133 Mhz front side bus iBooks is tough enough now. They'd have had to be absolutely suicidal to stick to IBM's roadmap and the near certainty that they be trying to sell the exact some mobile processors in late 2007.
Yes, just like "hacking" and all the other words people have taken over to mean something different.
For all intensive purposes, I could care less.
Does CNET really think that in private meetings with IBM, this technology wasn't discussed months if not over a year ago, with Apple? I love how the press thinks that when THEY find out about it, the rest of the world is first hearing about it too...
"Stupid Apple", they chant. Except:
Maybe these Power chips will end up in Xserves or something...seems fairly unlikely though.
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I rather doubt Apple would switch again. Intel will eventually develop a similar capability or will license the production of it from IBM. I rather doubt Windows laptops will be switching to PowerPC anytime soon so there's a long road ahead for laptop chips at Apple.
Apple didn't move because of the performance of Intel versus IBM, it was that IBM was very unresponsive when it came to making a laptop variant of the G5. Now that Apple's on the Intel ship, they'll benefit from working with a company that has a vested interest in developing laptop chips. Name me one manufacturer other than Apple that made PowerPC based laptops and you'll see what I mean.
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Actually, chips for Apple accounted for less than 2% of the capacity of just one IBM fab. IBM's tech division (which does chip fabbing) accounted for less than 3% of IBM's total revenue. That's a really small piece of IBM's global business. It's kind of like an oil company losing one gas station...not really gonna hurt them that much.
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SOI just makes the chip run cooler.
They are talking about strained silicon, which makes the electron mobility larger in one direction. Intel, in fact, is working on that too, as are others.
Windows may hold the Enterprise Desktop environment, but they are a far cry from holding the server market in business. IBM is the leader there. They build the top end, most reliable, and highly available systems short of a custom engineered product for complete failure detection. In short, IBM is doing more for large scale business than anyone else these days. If you were running a large company, say a Fortune 50 retailer, would you install a bunch of Windows servers and setup nightly reboot jobs to keep things running smoothly, or would you setup AIX servers with HACMP (IBM's high availability offering) to run even if the hardware dies, sites go down, net connections drop, etc... you get the drift. It's all about what people can afford and the best is IBM.
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