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Apple Buys Israeli Flash Manufacturer
Lucas123 writes "According to published reports Apple is plunking down up to $500 million to purchase solid-state drive start-up Anobit Technologies. Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted about the deal congratulating Apple on its first acquisition in his country. Apple is planning to use the acquisition to set up to set up a semiconductor development center in Israel. Apple already uses NAND flash from Anobit in its iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air products, according to the reports."
Good to see some good ol' vertical integration still going on out there.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Someone set up us the semicondutor development centre.
First they just opened a new factory in Texas, now in Israel, both out of China (in case you did not read the fine print), so, is this the new trend now? No more "cheap" chips? Or maybe they are becoming too expensive? Or maybe Apple knows something that we don't? Like, China is friend no more.....
Coupled with their ARM CPU developments, I think Apple is attempting to remove their dependency on component makers such as Samsung (or at least gain some IP to use as leverage). I wouldn't be surprised if Apple starts some Flash-related patent wars in a few more years.
China doesn't tend to make things like chips. Those are almost all made somewhere else. China is more of a "final assembly" kind of space. You send them over the parts, they build the final product for cheap.
They design, they don't fab. Just like PA Semi which Apple bought earlier. Apple designs products and product components but then outsources their manufacture. They aren't interested (so far) in owning fabrication plants. They can be more agile if they can switch manufacturers as their requirements change.
Very often, people confuse simple with simplistic. The nuance is lost on most. - Clement Mok
As a typical open source advocated, I am shaking my fist in anger at how successful Apple is with its proprietary technology. Why are people giving that company money when they could be using a Linux machine and playing Tux Racer instead of stupid Angry Birds??? What makes me more mad is that I've been practicing being irate at Microsoft for so long that when Apple suddenly rushed to success overnight, it's made me angry that I did nothing with my life during the 2000s except comb my exquisite neckbeard and ponytail. Doesn't Apple know that it could make more money by giving away its software and hardware for free and then charge for services? SO ANGRY RIGHT NOW AT OTHER PEOPLE'S SUCCESS. GRRRR! Everyone on Slashdot is with me, right? All together now: GRRRR!
Weren't Anobit the folks who developed the technology to make MLC flash work reliably? That's going to become critically important as people increase the density of the arrays (for SSD drives etc) - and from the way Apple has been behaving recently, I'm not sure they'd be willing to share it with Intel, Sandisk and so on.
At least they bought an Israeli Flash company and not Adobe, amirite?
(Thank you, I'm here all week.)
Good move on Apple's part- buy the developer and retain the patents for anything new and novel coming out of there, but continue to outsource the fabrication. It's everything that was good about vertical integration, minus the bad (costs of retooling, slow response times). Couple this with locked in deals with manufacturers and Apple is setting itself up for an even stronger market domination. Say what you want about them (evil, controlling, walled-garden, doo-doo heads), they're not stupid over there. And keep in mind, the company is now run by the guy who was in charge of the supply chain. We're gonna be hearing alot more stories like this in the near future. Love them or hate them, Apple is running their business very very right.
Apple doesn't support Flash! ;)
Be or ben't
Not even as a fabless designer. So no, Apple doesn't use NAND flash from Anobit in any current devices.
Anobit makes NAND flash technology. Apple uses NAND which sues some of this technology in their current devices.
Additionally, I work with NAND engineers at Apple every day and so far they all deny this acquisition is even happening. They might be lying to me, as that is part of what secrecy is, but so far it looks like the deal isn't real.
Adding to the suspicion that this might not be true is that this whole thing looks like a PR move for Israel, to try to make (or further) a case for their country as an R&D location. One difficulty with that whole angle is that Netanyahu says this is Apple's first overseas engineering/R&D center but they have had one at 7 Place d'Léna in Paris for 4-5 years and I suspect they have others too.
I don't know why, but I misread the subject as:
Apple Buys Israeli Flesh Manufacturer
Most ignorance is vincible ignorance. We don't know because we don't want to know. --Aldous Huxley
you talking about china or isreal?
Dear Mr. Coward, Where do you get this information? As an Israeli, who has served in the army, who votes in democratic elections and is able to criticize his government freely, who shares his cubicle at work with an Israeli Arab, who also enjoys civil rights and liberties and votes for his representatives, and as a Jew who carries the stain of history on his family's story, please tell me where is this ethnic cleansing you speak of? There is nothing I would rather wish for than the end of the occupation of the west bank, especially as a reserve soldier, but if it was so simple it would have been over a long time ago. There is no such thing as an evil nation, that's just racist. We are people. When I get called for duty, I spend most my time riding in a jeep in which the commander is a lawyer, the driver is a youth council, the medic is a magician, and I'm an electronic engineer. This isn't an ego bunch, and know for a fact that there isn't an army in the world that shows as much restraint as we do. And back to the topic, from a tech company perspective, its smart to set up a development center in Israel. It worked for Intel, IBM, TI, Google, Microsoft, HP and the list goes on.
They are the biggest in China, but that isn't saying much. You want big? Look at TSMC, who's IP SMIC ripped off. It's also only older tech. 45nm is the smallest they do. That's fine, but not for cutting edge products.
Plus while there's a decent market in fabs-for-order, there's a massive market in semi-conductor companies that fab their own stuff. Intel, IBM, TI, Samsung, and so on all fab their own stuff in whole or in part.
China is not big in the chips industry, at all. They do some, but nothing compared to the US or Taiwan.
Investing in a regime that has WMDs, with a long history of ethnic cleansing, and brutal racism, doesn't seem like a good move to enhance one's reputation.
Doesn't it get boring jerking that same knee all the time?
Good thing they didn't buy a company based in the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France, or India...all of which fit your criteria of having WMDs and a past that includes racism.
Clearly, they shouldn't buy companies owned by humans.
Looking for a job in Portland, Oregon?
Currently I believe the ethnic cleansing is at its most obvious in the capital city of Jerusalem with a little in the West Bank, but historically speaking the entire country was founded on systematic ethnic cleansing and some members of the Knesset would quite like to see it make a more widespread return.
"Some members"...who?
Looking for a job in Portland, Oregon?
More likely the coffin is designed to use his spinning body as a gyro...
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
You swing around the phrase "ethnic cleansing" as a political slogan while ignoring its content. I can accept 'occupation' as a description, but there is a significant lack of cleansing involved. Israel receives disproportional bad press, whilst so many terrible bad things go on on a daily basis in the world with literally no coverage at all. And again, you saying Israel is just racist is the most racist thing of all. The fact that an Israeli newspaper has the sort of article you link to proves that. Things aren't black and white, there is much beneath the surface, too much to over simplify.
I was in Jerusalem two years ago. Saw lots of Arabs. Bought a T-shirt from one in the Old City. Didn't see any cleansing going on. And speaking of getting "deeper and deeper into the West Bank", you do realize that we are talking about a strip of land about 10 miles wide, do you not?
A. No it isn't. By using the phrase "ethnic cleansing" you are trying to create an emotional response so that the reader/listener creates a comparison between Israel and the likes of Congo, Kosovo and Darfur. This isn't the case. B. The heavy military presence in the west bank is a product of the 2000 Intifada. The Jewish settlements have been in place long before that. The reason there is a 'closed military zone' is that its the only thing keeping the order there. While settling has been frozen, and some settlements have also been evacuated, terror hasn't declined. It is today's absurd situation, that a person needs to form an opinion prior to consuming news from the media, so that the person can choose in which opinion flavor he would like his news to be in. I think that before making yourself an advocate of an agenda, you should get some first hand views of the subject. If you are that passionate about hating Israel, I invite you to come and see it for yourself.
There is a reason importing your own population into occupied territory is prohibited by the 4th Geneva Convention, because it amounts to ethnic cleansing. The West Bank has been occupied since 1967, not 2000. There is no freeze, Tel Aviv just authorized another 1000 housing units on occupied territory, which was condemned by the UK, France, Germany, and Portugal.
The purpose of the entire settlement enterprise, and Zionism itself, is to take the land without the people, which is ethnic cleansing. It's what happened in 1947-1948 and has been going on continually since 1967. There is no need to make comparisons between Congo, Kosovo, or Darfur because it stands on it's own as an ongoing crime against humanity.
So because of your objection to ethnic cleansing and brutal racism you oppose investment in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Tunisia, and Libya?
You do know that at the height of the rocket-launching frenzy, Israel was still losing more (jewish) people to traffic accidents than to terrorism?
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then