OSNews: http://www.osnews.com/story/19852/Apple_To_Put_P_A_Semi_Chips_in_iPods_iPhones Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2009, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:24:50 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif OSNews.com http://www.osnews.com Samsung http://osnews.com/thread?318246 http://osnews.com/thread?318246 What happened to Samsung? I remember reading a while back that Samsung chips would wind up powering iPods, did that deal ever happen?

I hope they can come up with a better headphone amp. The amplifier in my iPod Touch is VERY noisy with high-end earphones, although I have an external portable amp so it's not a big deal for me. Wed, 11 Jun 2008 23:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (coupdetat) Comments RE: Samsung http://osnews.com/thread?318252 http://osnews.com/thread?318252 I believe the SoC that currently powers the iPod is in fact a Samsung part.

Also note that P.A. Semi have no fab of their own, so unless Apple plans on buying up a chip foundry also, they'll still need a manufacturing partner, which would likely remain Samsung.Edited 2008-06-12 01:05 UTC Thu, 12 Jun 2008 01:04:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (anevilyak) Comments Cheaper iPhones http://osnews.com/thread?318255 http://osnews.com/thread?318255 In the keynote his Stevenes said that he will reduce the cost of iphones.

Can this possibly reduce them further?Edited 2008-06-12 03:10 UTC Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (John Blink) Comments Questions... http://osnews.com/thread?318256 http://osnews.com/thread?318256 Anyone know what the potential response from the other 90% of the software market is? Does this announcement even warrant a response or is it just some basic tools with a lot of hype?

For instance, how does it compare to Intel's Thread Building Blocks library (www.threadingbuildingblocks.org), which was open sourced (GPLv2) last year? It is described as "C++ template library that simplifies the development of software applications running in parallel."

I haven't found any information on the OS community's stance on this OpenCL language. Anyone know anything here? Would any software on a default install of a Linux distro (or OS X, for that matter) have a use for this? Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (saucerful) Comments not PowePC! http://osnews.com/thread?318258 http://osnews.com/thread?318258 I doubt that Apple will use the Power arch again! My guess is that they will put the team to work on a Arm clone that's super low power and very fast.

Krreagan Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:53:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (krreagan) Comments os x ppc http://osnews.com/thread?318261 http://osnews.com/thread?318261 I'm willing to bet that Apple will still maintain a PPC port of the desktop version of OS X seeing as they now maintain OS X for 3 architectures, not counting different bit counts (or whatever the technically inclined call it ;) ). Keeping the OS ported to multiple architectures should yield a leaner, higher-quality codebase, or so the theory goes. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 03:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (thebackwash) Comments RE: not PowePC! http://osnews.com/thread?318262 http://osnews.com/thread?318262
I doubt that Apple will use the Power arch again! My guess is that they will put the team to work on a Arm clone that's super low power and very fast.

Krreagan


Time to market says otherwise. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 04:14:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (tyrione) Comments RE: Questions... http://osnews.com/thread?318265 http://osnews.com/thread?318265 Nobody has much idea what OpenCL is so they can't have any useful opinion.

BTW, I think you replied to the wrong thread. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 05:39:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Wes Felter) Comments i wonder... http://osnews.com/thread?318266 http://osnews.com/thread?318266 i cant shake the idea that apple will go iphone on their non-pro desktop and laptop products.

if done right, people can get the stuff they "need" from either apple or some third party via the app store, itms and so on.

the pro products will still be around, with a matching price tag, for the professionals that still want to use photoshop and other media products that have stayed available on apple over the years. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:11:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (hobgoblin) Comments RE: Questions... http://osnews.com/thread?318268 http://osnews.com/thread?318268

For instance, how does it compare to Intel's Thread Building Blocks library (www.threadingbuildingblocks.org), which was open sourced (GPLv2) last year? It is described as "C++ template library that simplifies the development of software applications running in parallel."


Apple has not released any information on OpenCL, which I find rather amusing for something touted as "open" ;)

Intel's threading building blocks would not be suitable for general OS X development. While it is a nice library, it is too reliance on templates and it borrows heavily from the STL. That's a really good thing, if you're targeting C++ developers. Since the majority of development under OS X is in Objective-C*, that's not very useful.

Because of that, OpenCL has to be C based. In fact, I'm going to guess it's just a C library and if they manage to do in C what Intel have done in C++, that's still going to be very useful. Not everyone uses C++ and language bindings (for Python, Perl, etc) are a lot easier to write for C libraries.

*You can use C++ code in Objective-C++ but it's not that common as it's very complex. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 06:48:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (evangs) Comments Strange move http://osnews.com/thread?318272 http://osnews.com/thread?318272 This is a strange move. They moved away from their (almost) custom made chips for notebooks, because their price was too high for the mass market and couldn't stand the competition from Intel.
Now, they do the opposite: they move from a common design to make their own, for a mass market. Will they stand the competition this time? Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (biffuz) Comments RE: not PowePC! http://osnews.com/thread?318273 http://osnews.com/thread?318273 You are probably right that it will be ARM, but I doubt P.A. Semi will make their own core. More likely, they will design a SOC around an existing ARM core. They _might_ add some simple processors around the ARM core to make a Cell-like architecture, but I really can't see why they would need to -- the newer ARM cores should have plenty of compute power for iPhone-like devices.

What could be more interesting is if Apple wants to go into the micronotebook market (to compete with Asus Eee and the other newcomers). Putting MacOS on one such would be quite a selling point. If they do so, an ARM-based SOC at heart might not be a bad idea. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 07:38:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (torbenm) Comments No PowerPC on desktop http://osnews.com/thread?318276 http://osnews.com/thread?318276 Having PowerPC chips in iPods and iPhones won't stop them from dropping PowerPC support on the desktop. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 08:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (azrael29a) Comments RE: Questions... http://osnews.com/thread?318279 http://osnews.com/thread?318279
For instance, how does it compare to Intel's Thread Building Blocks library (www.threadingbuildingblocks.org), which was open sourced (GPLv2) last year? It is described as "C++ template library that simplifies the development of software applications running in parallel."


As far as I understand OpenCL is oriented at GPU-based acceleration. In the area of parallel processing a lot of interesting work is going on in the development community. For instance, OpenMP (supported by the latest gcc versions and Visual Studio) is being adopted steadily. I did not have time to try it extensively yet, but from a quick glance it seems to make parallelization over constructs like loops fairly easy. Other interesting work is carried out in parallelization of the C++ standard library, e.g. in GNU libstdc++.

Wrt. to OpenCL: I read some rumors that Apple wants OpenCL to become a standard, so with a bit of luck they will make the source available. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 09:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (danieldk) Comments RE: Strange move http://osnews.com/thread?318280 http://osnews.com/thread?318280 Except that Apple didn't own IBM and Motorola... Thu, 12 Jun 2008 10:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (rajan r) Comments RE[2]: not PowePC! http://osnews.com/thread?318311 http://osnews.com/thread?318311
"I doubt that Apple will use the Power arch again! My guess is that they will put the team to work on a Arm clone that's super low power and very fast.

Krreagan


Time to market says otherwise. "

In what way? Apple has already had to come out and say they will continue the PPC support at P.A. for the Military, not their commercial products. I think SJ felt burned by Moto and IBM for their (lack of) support for low power and fast PPC processors. After all that has been the main reason given as to why Apple left the PPC arch in the first place.

They won't develop for a new PPC device in the foreseeable future. they may or may not continue support for their legacy products in the White Cat edition!, that is up to them.

Krreagan Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (krreagan) Comments RE: Strange move http://osnews.com/thread?318312 http://osnews.com/thread?318312 I think the story is different with SoC chips.

For these types of devices what they've done with P.A. is really just an extension of what they do with their custom hardware in general. They take a generally available CPU (nVidia chose ARM chips for it's SoC, Apple will use P.A. chips), and integrate it in silicon with their own parts, or licensed third party parts. That's remarkably similar to their current model - take the chip, Intel, ARM or whatever, and put it on a circuit board with other licensed chips (and maybe some custom/proprietary ones, like nVidia does).

The only difference is the package they are putting it in. They've shifted to micro chip level integration, in addition to circuit board integration. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Touvan) Comments Sad http://osnews.com/thread?318313 http://osnews.com/thread?318313 I must say that I'm quite sad with the demise of PA Semi, and I don't understand why Apple did that.

Their PPC chip was brilliant and had very fast acceptance in high performance/embedded applications (for example mil, aero...). There are many applications where no consumer-grade Intel x86 is suitable.

ARM licences CPU cores, Apple can design custom ASICs without having to actually develop an ARM CPU, like nVidia and Samsung embedded chips, for example. In all cases, you'll have to get a licence from ARM to create an ARM clone.

The PPC has shown numerous times that it can reach higher performances than ARM. PA Semi has shown that a high performance PPC core can be a relatively low power device. But, if Apple would need high performance/low power CPUs, they could as well use Intel Atom chips.

I can't belive that the high profile guys at PA Semi will spend their time doing ASIC assembly with IP bricks. If Apple does not have something really innovative, they will leave. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Treza) Comments Remember what the PA Semi guys did before PPC? http://osnews.com/thread?318327 http://osnews.com/thread?318327 Hello,

The PA Semi core team worked on StrongARM before they worked on PPC ;) . These guys know their stuff about ARM, probably moreso than Samsung, as seen here:

http://blogs.computerworld.com/apple_buys_p_a_semi

If Apple wants this technology fabbed, they can go to TSMC or one of the other fabs out there who will gladly fab the chips for them (even IBM).

The other plus (for Apple) is that Apple gets to play keepaway with technology that would actually help IBM make fast PPC chips that won't need water cooling. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 18:01:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (mbpark) Comments RE: Cheaper iPhones http://osnews.com/thread?318346 http://osnews.com/thread?318346 I believe he was talking about reducing 'his' cost, not ours. Thu, 12 Jun 2008 23:17:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Phloptical) Comments