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165 Comments
- zackella, on 06/11/2008, -2/+109Bringing Fabless semiconductor chip design in-house is a great idea for Apple if they can commit to semiconductor research in addition to development. They will be competing with 3rd party semi houses that "do this for a living" across billions of devices per year... compared with the 10-20 million mobile devices per year that Apple is planning. We brought chip design in-house at US Robotics in the 90's and were able to out-perform the competition with our own designs in the short term. However, it was easy to get behind the "research" curve in hardware and focus resources instead on the next project in the pipeline. Its a nice idea, but very difficult strategy to win with in the long term because it requires such business discipline to stay competitive.
- awesometastic1, on 06/12/2008, -4/+85if they call it the iChip i'm going to have to shoot somebody...
- Alex2, on 06/12/2008, -12/+81In the Apple design labs...
So.. why is is black? Can you make the chip white?
K.
And what's with the lead and tin? Got anything shinier? How about chrome.. ya, chrome pins.
um... K.
And.. we need a light, can you have the sides light up?
.. sure.
Too many pins.. too square.. lets make it a 'pod'.. round.. yeah.
uh..
And those pins.. how bout five.. five round fingers on the pod.
uhhhh...
And glossy, we so need glossy. OH yeah.. - ThreeDee912, on 06/12/2008, -8/+58Maybe this is why Apple bought out PA Semiconductor...?
- Falor42, on 06/11/2008, -9/+54of course now they can't blame any flaws on the manufacturing company...
- Lane, on 06/12/2008, -6/+44Someone on digg with a relative and insightful comment? Why this should be a ASCII, OM NOM NOM, but will it blend, or link to a rickroll.... What's this place going back to?
- bittermang, on 06/12/2008, -1/+36They already did buy up chip companies.
Remember the big rumble about Palo Alto Semi Conductors months ago that made everyone go "OK, wtf?"
This is the answer to that "Seriously, wtf?" - MCA2142, on 06/12/2008, -1/+27Ding Ding Ding!
What do we have for him Johnny? - bipolarruledout, on 06/12/2008, -5/+28Remember why you went with Intel Steve? Stick with what your good at. Chips are fast enough these days that it's much cheaper just to design some software to run on them. This isn't the 80's.... you can afford a slight speed hit.
/Yes I know it was Moterola/IBM but the point still stands. - Amazetbm, on 06/12/2008, -2/+23Samsung and Intell will probably just throw more weight behind the Google's Open Handset Alliance as a precaution.
- vinod1978, on 06/11/2008, -21/+42We've already seen other companies quickly come up with their copy cat iPhones and have started to do things like multi touch, so now that that the price of the iPhone is pretty cheap, and it has 3G capabilities, other copy cat companies will try to make their phones cheaper with some of the same capabilities as the iPhone. The only way to get rid of those companies is to eliminate the hardware that will power their devices. I think it would take at least 4-5 years before we see any device powered by Apple itself instead of Intel, Samsung, or similar companies. I believe that Apple might buy up smaller chip companies to help them develop their own product, or will co-design with smaller companies with an exclusive contract that will not allow the company to sell their chips to anyone else.
It is not as surprising to me as apparently it was to Intel or Samsung - but they have about 5 years to rake in the money with Apple. Unless they decide to come up with technology that can only be purchased by Apple (which they might propose), they'll be SOL. - inactive, on 06/12/2008, -6/+25What an idiotic comment. Do you seriously think that Apple will get rid of those companies or stop them from copycatting by making their own mobile hardware? The average consumer wont even notice the difference.
Except for their Mac hardware I see little to no point for this on a cellphone. Companies like Samsung invest big amounts of money on R&D a year, specially on making technologies we already have smaller and less energy consumer.
Your comment was full of fanboyism *****. - marcushe, on 06/12/2008, -4/+20Business students - a classic make or buy decision.
Over time, after the initial costly purchase of PA Semi, it will be cheaper to design the chips in house. It will give Apple a competitive advantage in the industry, being able to design chips for their specific technology needs and future features. Since they won't be buying from Samsung, Intel, etc, anymore - it will raise the price for other firms buying from those companies - further increasing Apple's competitive advantage.
I think Apple's making the right decisions all around to make the iPhone what the iPod is in it's market today - dominant. - RyeBrye, on 06/12/2008, -3/+18No. They did not design the chip themselves, nor did they buy out the company that made the chip (perhaps you've heard of them? IBM?)
- fusionFactor, on 06/12/2008, -0/+15So you DID read the story then...
- dullnation, on 06/12/2008, -2/+15Looks like a url to me...
- 0011002, on 06/12/2008, -1/+14two free Internetz!
- badwithcomputer, on 06/12/2008, -9/+22A group of high Apple designers quickly announced that if Apple was making chips they'd have a dev team get cracking on overpriced guacamole in different colors by the end of the day.
- MonumentMan, on 06/12/2008, -6/+18designing a chip is far different than designing a consumer product
why on earth would they want to do this? do they think they will be able to invest more money into R&D than the huge chip companies, or keep up with continual and rapid advances in technology? if they are talking about designing a custom asic or fpga or whatever, ok that's fine.
if you develop your own chip, you can get something that is precisely designed for your application. no extra anything chomping up extra power, cost, etc. but in the age of moore's law and ridiculous and continual chip advancements, why lock down a custom chip design when off the shelf stuff will be significnatly better several months down the road?
i dont get it. - BryanJK, on 06/12/2008, -1/+13would have been funnier if your name was johnny :3
- TheSuperunknown, on 06/12/2008, -2/+12Whenever somebody writes Microsoft with a $ I just cannot do anything to convince myself they're not an idiot. I'm sorry.
- chillypacman, on 06/12/2008, -2/+11Don't worry, they'll find someone to blame.
- deadnoob, on 06/12/2008, -1/+9Every company starts out small at one point.
- KentDiego, on 06/12/2008, -1/+9I worked for two companies that tried to develope a CDMA chip set. Sony and Nokia. They both lost near a hundred million trying and had to give it up. TI just layed off everyone developing a UMTS chipset. There is no way Jobs will be able to make it in the phone chipset market. He needs to stick to personal electronics and just pick and choose the best/cheapest chips available. Why doesen't he try to make a x86 chip instead? Time to dump your Apple stock.
- HookmasterCH47, on 06/12/2008, -5/+13Apple bought PA semiconductor for their new iMissile!
- MacSuxWindozSux, on 06/12/2008, -1/+9Dude there's no way they are going to "get rid of those copy cat companies". There's no way you'd want them to anyway.
Since when does Apple have a monopoly on hand held devices?
Companies were already making mp3 players when the iPod came out and people act like anyone making an mp3 player now is ripping off the iPod.
There's like a trillion phones sold world wide every year and Apple sells only a couple million of them. There are companies making mobile phones, pocket PC's, tablets, and all manner of electronics.
I agree the parent made an idiotic fanboy filled comment. - pintomp3, on 06/12/2008, -0/+8there's always the user.
- chuckDontSurf, on 06/12/2008, -0/+8But don't forget that Apple will still need Intel or Samsung to fab the chips, so Intel/Samsung won't be losing out completely. It'll be interesting to see how this plays out.
- DillonHinson, on 06/12/2008, -1/+8Dude, that's just gross.
- EllimistX, on 06/12/2008, -2/+91.21 JIGGAWATTS!
- delirium, on 06/12/2008, -3/+9This is one of the worst ideas for Apple. There's a reason Intel and Samsung dominate the semiconductor business. They spend billions in R&D that Apple can't compete in.
- SuperFarStucker, on 06/12/2008, -0/+6The market is pretty flush as it is. It'll require some crafty maneuvering to beat out the industry by taking up a small fabrication company. I suppose they were finding that what was out there didn't suit their needs and that was the driving factor behind this, not cost savings. That's a surprising statement to make in this day and age though.
- dustinhoffman, on 06/12/2008, -1/+7Well said Dumbledorito... but jabberwolf... the point of a business is to make money.... I hate to break it to you... but the Apple is here to make money (like any other business)... they have found their identity in cultivating high-tech, high-quality technology that people are willing to pay for... the 3G iPhone is cheaper... but it's still more expensive than other phones.... and people are willing to pay that premium because of the "gee-whiz" factor and because they know that it is a quality product...
- pmilkman, on 06/12/2008, -1/+7You may very well be right, but a) Apple has never actually made their own CPUs, they had Motorola and IBM before Intel. b) TFA says this is just for the iPods and iPhones where interoperability isn't nearly as crucial as it is on the desktop/server computing side of things.
- wocheck, on 06/12/2008, -5/+11Bad idea, this is what happen when the pc and mac were being introduced into the market, mac used much of its own in house hardware to make mac's while pc used different manufacturers hardware to build pc which kept the price down and kept competition high in market. If Apple does this then they will lose everything they gain in past few years..
- appleseed1234, on 06/12/2008, -2/+7Dugg because this is semi-warranted.
- ArchAngel21x, on 06/12/2008, -0/+5Something tells me this is a terrible idea. Steve jobs said one time that "it's all about the software." His company need to focus on making great software and forming partnerships with companies that already makes great hardware.
- wazzledoozle2, on 06/12/2008, -0/+5Cell is a Sony/IBM joint project. It's mostly based on the power architecture (IBM). Even Sony has more experience in chip design than Apple... (The PS2/PSP "emotion" chip etc....)
- TheSuperunknown, on 06/12/2008, -1/+6"I'm not saying better or worse. Just different in a good way."
...What? - InfiniteNothing, on 06/12/2008, -0/+5I'm a disappointed mac fanboy. I was pretty excited about the intel atom processors.
- Gimpyfuzznut, on 06/12/2008, -0/+4Seriously, I don't understand how Apple thinks it would be better for their bottom line to dump millions into buying a chip maker and then spend millions more on R&D, design, and manufacturing than to just buy the best available chips on the market? There are already A LOT of big players in the semiconductor market and several have been around for 25+ years. Is Jobs really thinking he can now do a better job than Intel, Sony, Nokia, NVidia, etc? I mean even freakin' AMD + ATI has gotten trounced in semiconductor arena lately and they've been doing what they do since 1969! O no, Apple is going to start pumping out the chips with PA Semiconductor on their side! I'm pretty sure there aren't going to be any Apple chips in anything for at least another 3 years.
- DimensionalPunk, on 06/12/2008, -2/+6I came here to say the same thing.
- inactive, on 06/12/2008, -2/+6* Apple making their own portable music player? The market is already saturated! It'll kill them!
* Apple make their own smart phone? The market is already saturated! No one will buy one! It'll kill them!
* Apple making their own chips?
So far they've been hitting home runs, and as long as they keep the talented team they have now, and keep hiring others like them, Apple will be fine long after Jobs leaves. - mrBitch, on 06/12/2008, -1/+5RE : " what makes you think apple with very little chip building history will be better at making chips then companies like ibm nvidia amd intel or samsung? "
This is very similar to what Palm were saying when Apple announced the iPhone :
"We've been doing this for quite a few years now, I don't think Apple is going to come in and do anything special with their FIRST EVER phone in a market as mature as the hand set phone market is currently." - bjornski, on 06/12/2008, -0/+4The last thing I even remember them doing was dial-up modems.
- Gimpyfuzznut, on 06/12/2008, -1/+5What hardware does Apple make? Fancy computer cases are not hardware... and those aren't even manufactured by Apple anyway! If anything they DESIGN hardware. You get the difference? Apple's guts are made by Intel (and IBM before that) and every other run of the mill hardware company that you find manufacturing parts for a PC. Same goes for their laptops. Same goes for the iPhone!
Microsoft does the same thing - they design hardware and maybe manufacture some of their peripherals line. IMO they do a pretty good job at it. However, its obvious they did make mistakes with the 360... but Apple hasn't? - Dumbledorito, on 06/12/2008, -6/+10That's not entirely true. Having the money and capacity to roll out products is one thing, being able to make ones of quality is quite another.
After all, Sony gave us exploding batteries, Apple gave us the puck mouse, DLink gave us routers that doubled as portable campfires, etc. - jo21, on 06/12/2008, -0/+4you seriously havent lookt XPS range, and tough books.
- DillonHinson, on 06/12/2008, -1/+5 Saying that smaller companies only make inferior products is an entirely wrong and uninformed comment. Just because they're small doesn't mean they're not good. Maybe the company's business model is to stay small or maybe they haven't quite raked in enough profits to expand and grow their name. A company's size does not reflect the quality of products. And on the flip side, yes, larger, well-known companies can be trusted because they didn't get that large if they didn't in have the money to expand, and money comes from good business. But that doesn't mean they're the only companies out there.
On another note, for such a highly respected company like Apple, do you think they'd buyout or partner with a company that they presumed to be of poor quality and standards? No, Apple wouldn't. You can trust that small company just as much as you can Apple.
Oh, and the point of business is to make money. Steve Jobs happens to be really good at that. - jeffclark, on 06/12/2008, -0/+4I'm pretty sure that's the point of the comment.
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