Apple Plans To Make Chips For Handhelds

Preedit writes "Apple plans to get into the business of designing microprocessors for handheld devices, according to legal papers that are part of a dispute between IBM and one of its top technology executives. IBM is suing Power chip expert Mark Papermaster for allegedly violating a non-compete agreement and accepting a job at Apple. In court papers, IBM claims Apple wants Papermaster 'to design microprocessors for incorporation in a variety of electronic devices, including handheld devices.' The suit, according to Infoweek, also notes that Apple earlier this year bought out P.A. Semi. IBM thinks it knows why."

Comments

Good luck with that~

[geekoid]

non compete employment agreement are not viewed very favorably in California.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/08/08/california-supreme-c-1.html

http://www.workforce.com/section/03/feature/25/82/12/index.html

http://www.employlaw.com/noncompete.htm

Re:Good luck with that~

[OglinTatas]

Prolly why IBM is filing in NY.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/10/31/apple_ibm_chipper_lawsuit/

Re:Where is Apple using Power chips currently?

[shawnce]

Nope. PowerPC is not coming back on the desktop anytime soon for Apple. The P.A. Semi purchase is about SoC likely built around ARM for small devices (aka iPhone).

IBM has a case

[blind biker]

except non-compete agreements were ruled unconstitutional

And rightly so, I shall add. Non-compete agreements are total crap and I hope IBM gets smacked down hard in court over this frivolous lawsuit.

What, you thought I was going to support IBM on this one? Don't believe everything you read in the subject line ;o)

Re:IBM has a case

[lysergic.acid]

don't know about the first one, but IBM seems to be meeting the last two requirements:
-they're only asking that he refrain from working for Apple or another direct competitor for one year.
-they offered to pay him a year's salary (on top of his default compensation package) in exchange for his abidance with the non-compete clause.

while i think that non-compete clauses definitely have some potential for abuse by employers, i don't think IBM is being that unreasonable in this instance.

Perfectly Legal

[jdb2]

Power.org is the standards body that controls the POWER(PC) ISA specifications, among other things. Its members include IBM, *Apple*, Freescale and many others. If you want to build a custom designed chip based on one of the ISAs "owned" by Power.org, then all you need to do is become a member and license the ISA of your choice. You are then free to design any kind of custom *micro*-architecture your heart desires as long as the ISA presented by your chip/micro-architecture is compatible with the ISA you licensed from Power.org .

I want some of whatever the hell IBM is smoking.

jdb2

Re:Gosh and I wondered what they'd do with P.A. Se

[Cyberax]

Not quite true. A lot of companies still design microprocessors from scratch.

For example, look at Chinese Longsoon CPUs, nanochip, OpenCores, and so on. I also know that several CPUs are designed from scratch in Russia.