Apple introduced a new generation of smart phones , the heart of which was the newest chip A8. This is one of the most powerful solutions in the mobile segment of the market, and users on the web is rumored that the company is now able to do without the help of Intel. Is this true?
To start over later, but to begin with we recall where the shoe pinches, and why we do raise this topic. It should be understood that Apple has never been fully independent company when it came to designing processors.
Hopes for PowerPC
Until 2006, the company has used processors like the PowerPC (or abbreviated as PPC), recalls Vestifinance . It was a RISC-microprocessor architecture, created in 1991, an alliance of companies Apple, IBM and Motorola, known as AIM. Revolutionary computers Apple, including the famous notebook type Clamshell, worked on these CPUs. Suppliers were just IBM and Motorola, and Apple has participated in the development of architecture.
Independently update the Apple line and could not rely on their partners who have both technological base and capacity for development and production. In the end, Steve Jobs began to lose faith in IBM, which was responsible for a major part of the process. From a technological point of view PowerPC gradually lagged behind Intel, which, of course, gave a substantial advantage to the main competitor Apple - Microsoft c its Windows. Jobs particularly painful reaction to the schedule drawn up by Intel with a forecast growth of processor performance and increase energy efficiency.
In 2003, Apple CEO said that the performance of PowerPC-based chips will grow rapidly. A year later, was supposed to be "stone» G5 processor with a clock frequency of 3 GHz. But to fulfill the promise failed. Apple could hopelessly behind its competitors.
Disappointment, a partnership with Intel
Jobs made an important strategic move: he ordered the creation of an operating system that can work with the processor Intel, and PowerPC. Many analysts then waited for an agreement not with Intel, but with its rival AMD, but Apple chose a more energy-efficient solutions, although in terms of technology transfer partnership with Intel was a challenging task.
Since then, it has since August 2006, the Cupertino-based company has completed its "great transition", although support for the PowerPC architecture was discontinued only in OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard, which was released in 2009.
Cooperation and the war with Samsung
About this little known, but in 2007 when the market has its first iPhone, processors it purchased from Samsung. It was a Korean CPU brand development, who worked on the architecture of ARM, at the moment only gaining in popularity.
The following two models also supplied chip Samsung, and only the iPhone 4 was first used by the system-on-chip (SoC) Ax, Apple created with the assistance of Koreans. Samsung remained the main supplier of processors for gadgets up until this year, when the "Apple" has shifted to TSMC after years of patent disputes with Samsung.
Can we do without Intel?
Now the big question: Can Apple do without Intel chips and replace its first Intel Core M, used in devices such as the MacBook Air, and then the older CPU model?
Portal The Motley Fool has tested a series of chips Intel Core M and Apple A8, to find out whether the "home" processor to replace the production of the largest manufacturer of processors in the world. It turned out the difference between these solutions is enormous:
Not today, then tomorrow?
On the one hand, the superiority of Intel Core M should not cause problems, because it is not a system-on-chip for gadgets, and a full-processor computers. On the other, it becomes clear that at the moment Apple, if it has, of course, there is some secret development, is not able to do without the partnership with Intel. Using chips A8 in laptops and even more so in the Apple iMac throw back for many years, and is unlikely to go to Tim Cook as meaningless step.Speculation about the mythical development company from Cupertino in this case do not bear any factual justification. Note that Intel is currently virtually a monopoly in the market, while AMD's are not doing very well. This means that Apple partner feels even better than in the mid-2000s, when Steve Jobs made an agreement with Intel.
But it will be interesting to see how Apple's policy change in the future. Creating and updating facilities for the production of processors for computers would be very costly, but because Apple - the most expensive corporation in the world. Maybe she still invest in the "gems" its vast reserves cache? Not today, then tomorrow ...