Did Apple shaft PA Semi to go Intel?
Apple went back on a verbal agreement to source processors from Start-up manufacturer PA Semi in order to take up Intel processors, according to a report on The Register 
.
PA Semi makes low-power chips that are compatible with PowerPC software, fast, and use considerably less power than Intel’s. Its first chip, PA6T-1682M, which is due to launch in the third quarter of 2006, has a 2GHz clock speed on a dual-core processor with two DDR2 memory controllers, 2MB of L2 cache and PCI Express support.
These chips would have given Apple the grunt it wanted for its notebook chips and low power consumption (7 watts with PA Semi vs. 21-25 watts with Intel, apparently) without the pain of transitioning software to a new architecture. The only problem: PA Semi would not have been ready to produce the chips until 2007.
The article claims that high-level conversations between PA Semi and Apple had given PA Semi a very strong sense (maybe even an “understanding”) that Apple would take its chips:
“PA Semi was counting on that deal. They had lots of guys walking around in a daze when Apple went to Intel. They had no idea that would actually happen.”
If you are intrigued by Apple’s Dr Jekyll and My Hyde behaviour or simply follow the company’s choices for the future, you will find this article very interesting.
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Tags: Apple, chips, intel, pa semi, PowerPC, what might have been
May 20th, 2006 at 11:42 pm
With all the fuzz and transition to Universal Binaries I believe we will (at some point) have a base of applications that are so robust to run on multiple architectures that Apple will definitely have the choice of providing any kind of hardware without breaking anything. So be prepared for that ultra-slim MacBook Pro 12″ with a battery life time of 12+ hours!
May 21st, 2006 at 1:03 am
I can’t even believe they were getting ready to deal with a company with so few employees they couldn’t even begin to fill the new Apple Store on Fifth avenue!
They finally came to their senses is all. It probably if anything shows how dedicated to the PPC chip they were and how hesitant they were to go Intel. However, they had been working on Intel side by side with PPC during the development of OS X according to jobs so a wait to 2007 (or maybe beyond) would have killed the company.
Making it look like Apple screwed the little guy is insane in this case. What would we all be now if Apple had gone with these guys? For one, we would have no MBP or MB. We wouldn’t have the exciting news of Boot Camp or Parallels. And worst of all, we would be waiting for a bump in processor speed with no relief until at least sometime in 2007 (or beyond.) The iBook would be sitting their like an old, tiring battle axe for the now underway school buying period.
I believe Apple is going to see one of their largest quarters ever. And the MB and MBP will be leading the pack. Big time. No way this happens in the other scenario.
May 21st, 2006 at 2:04 am
Is it any surprise that Apple *didn’t* go with them? I mean,
“PA6T-1682M, which is due to launch in the third quarter of 2006, has a 2GHz clock speed on a dual-core processor with two DDR2 memory controllers, 2MB of L2 cache and PCI Express support.”
Q3 2006, in my best guess Apple will be finished with the Intel transition. It seems they were a year late and a transition short. THe last thing Apple needed was another chip manufacturer slow to get the chips out of the door.
May 21st, 2006 at 4:35 am
The last thing Apple needed was another chip manufacturer slow to get the chips out of the door………AND have the manufacturing infrastructure to actually produce enough processors on time to meet demand.
The mistakes of Freescale and IBM will not be repeated……..we now have terrific cpus in our Macs and they’re only going to get better and faster. Besides this fact there are plenty of coders who know how to code for intel cpus and NOBODY much who knows jack about velocity engines or PowerPC. Case in point the online community Second Life has NO IDEA how to write object vectors to the altivec engine. So it dosen’t matter the whole PowerPC altivec engine situation should be tossed away as it is not implemented by more than a few businesses who are coding software.
Apple also needs to rewrite the OS X kernel as well the Mach kernel is crap. I expect that will be fixed by Leopard’s release.
It is high time for Apple to go mainstream in every way and be ready to provide solutions in mass quantity to the public. ONLY in this way will Apple grow marketshare in order to displace Microsoft Dell Sony and HP.
The rewrite of the kernel will put Apple into server space finally along with using iNTEL Woodcrest Server cpus from Intel. THEN Apple can move into enterprise with Mac OS X server.
Pa Semi WHO????
May 21st, 2006 at 6:05 am
Personally, as both an Apple user and conservationist, the idea of fast chips with 1/3 power consumption = good idea!
It is time to get away from the chipset speed race and focus more on lowering power consumption and lowering heat generation.
At this point, I do not care so much if iTunes loads .05 millisecs quicker as I do in saving $100-some dollars a year in utilities and a few tons of pollutants.
May 21st, 2006 at 6:12 am
First of all we should all know that the Register tends toward the tabloid style of British “journalism.” But even if this report is completely factual, it’s not clear at all from the report that Apple actually “went back on a verbal agreement.” That defintely seems to overstate it. It could very well be the case that “PA Semi executives [were] thinking they were all but assured the Apple win,” but all of us often want to believe something more than we have real evidence for. To say that Apple went back on a verbal agreement makes it sound like they broke a contract, or at the very least a promise, and nothing in this report substantiates that.
May 21st, 2006 at 6:46 am
Yea, we have to keep in mind it’s really one POINT OF VIEW and what are they going to say, “we had a fast chip but we needed another 2 years to get it right …”
AND after that? is it like Motorola, we created the PowerPC chip – let’s just relax for a few years?
And who is smarter? The guys at this chip company or Steve Jobs? Steve saw that there was a) a window before Vista shipped or was running up to full speed and b) Intel may not have the fastest and best chips right now but I’ll bet there are 100 chips in various stages of design and testing – these guys? as someone pointed out, every emlployee can fit into the new Apple store – you going to roll your dice with these guys?
And grow up people, companies work with and talk about and even sign agreements with lots of people. That’s what you have lawyers for – sometimes it is about negotiating but sometimes a better offer comes along. If you are working with a city to build a new factory and everything seems to be going somoothly but another city comes up & offers you $50 million in tax credits – what do you do? Go with the first city because it would be “not very nice” of you or do you go with the other city offer?
May 21st, 2006 at 9:55 am
This is a non-story. Apple would have been crazy to bet its entire company on the promises of a startup with no shipping products, and no promise of any shipping products until 2007 at the earliest (and that’s if they met their targets — business product estimates, are often wildly off base; e.g. Vista was first promised to ship in early 2004, and we’re still waiting).
Plus, if PA Semi does eventually deliver a killer product, there’s nothing stopping Apple from using it in a small subnotebook/ultraportable or even tablet.
May 21st, 2006 at 11:39 am
Well, I’ve always thought verbal agreements aren’t worth the paper they’re written on. Most serious business people don’t act on anything until they have something on paper.
May 21st, 2006 at 2:02 pm
The chip consumes 7 Watts and it doesn’t even exist yet… imagine how much power it will consume once it’s made out of silicon instead of air.
Seriously… 2007? By then Intel’s second-generation Core processors will be out, and their preliminary benchmarks are through the ceiling. And would this company have helped Apple foot the bill for the chipset design, too? And guarantee virtually unlimited supply?
Once the emotional aspects are discarded, this was a no-brainer.