P.A. Semi, a 150-employee chip startup, wants to make name for itself through attention to detail. The Silicon Valley chip startup, run by chip legend Dan Dobberpuhl-Dobberpuhl, its CEO, presided over the development of the Alpha processor while at Digital Equipment Corp. lifted its veil of secrecy Monday. The company will begin offering a new family of low-power, multicore, PowerPC architecture processors in 2006.
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Member since:2005-07-06
Even so, the fact is, would Apple really rely on a company that has no fabrication facilities and no legacy of being able to supply, in mass, chips that Apple would require if they launched a product based on their chip.
There is also the issue of long term viability; if PA Semi wished to had get Apple onside, they would have to put a pretty damn good case to Apples board; in regards to the Intel move, if they see there is a viable alternative, they might push back the release of a Intel version of their Mac. Then again, this is all speculation.
Member since:2005-07-07
Even after Apple goes, PPC market will not die. It will grow as never before.
I'm willing to bet that PPC reselling will exced Apple yearly sale in one month (or less) after PS3 comes out. Do not forget XBox 360 which is PPC too. And remember IBM servers. Next in line are Cell computers (which I personally can't wait to lay my hands on one or two of those). And by the fact do you even know where Cell is planned to be used elsewhere?
Member since:2005-07-11
Yeah, cause Apple was the only company to ever use PowerPC and IBM is still crying in their soup over Apple's decision to move to Intel. Sure...
Hate to break it to you, but Apple was a small fry in the PowerPC world. They just popularized the name to drooling home desktop users.
Member since:
2005-07-06
Too little too late. I don't see where this CPU fits into the market. The only sucessful advocates of the Power PC CPU plans on switching to intel next year. Doesn't matter how good the processors are.