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Intel To Build Next Gen Processor For iOS Devices
BogenDorpher writes "It looks like Apple will be using Intel as a main processor manufacturer to power the iPad, iPod touch, and the iPhone. Apple, who currently uses Samsung, will focus on making a switch to Intel within a year."
Apple hasn't been happy with Samsung launching android phones, and this is how they're showing their displeasure.
The report from EETimes suggests Intel is only going after foundry business to produce the A-series processors for Apple, not that Apple is looking to change architectures.
It could be Apple leaving Samsung, or it could be they've decided to go with multiple suppliers for everything to reduce potential impacts from future disasters.
Intel used to do ARM (the StrongARM, which was sold to Marvell). Samsung manufactures the A4 and A5 chips, which Apple designed. The EE times article claimed intel was interested in manufacturing the A4/A5/An+1 chips for Apple, not that Apple is switching to x86.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Intel does what ever you pay them to make. The have a ton of fab shops. I'm sure if you had enough leverage and handed them a chip spec, you could get them to build PPC RISC processors too.
Apple comes in, says "We're going to want X millon of these A5s, and BTW I'm sure AMD would be more than glad to supply us with these chips AND the chips for our next laptops & desktops, your call."
Here's a similar report from EETimes.
Of course that article says that the "Next Gen Processor For iOS Devices" (as well as the current A5) will be build by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC) (at least some of them), and that Intel may want to build the Gen after that.
Fandroids hate facts.
That's somewhat oversimplified.
For years there were a lot of advantages to the PowerPC chips. They were fast, energy efficient, had nice extensions like AltiVec and so forth. RISC was seen as inherently better than older instruction sets like x86. Heck, all the computer architecture classes I taught in school taught MIPS, etc. Given backing by IBM et al, the PowerPC line was believed to be able to quickly scale up.
By the end of the G4 era of PowerMacs and certainly by the G5 era, the writing was on the wall. New processors weren't coming out fast enough. They weren't scaling fast enough. Breakthroughs in x86 chips brought about a renaissance of CISC. It was time to find something else.
None of that negates the fact that for a lot of the run of PowerPC macs, their processors were highly competitive (at worst, if not better) than x86 chips in many ways.