Apple's inhouse processor could turn up in iSlate
By CAROLINE GABRIEL
Published: 21 January, 2010
rethink-wireless.com
As speculation mounts about the exact details of the Apple 'iSlate' tablet, expected to debut next week, one long time Apple watcher has been tapping into the supply chain to forecast the chips inside the device. Ashok Kumar of Northeast Securities believes this will be the first product to feature the awaited application processor developed inhouse by Apple, using the technology it acquired in 2008 with PA Semi.
This would be a blow to both Apple's usual processor suppliers, Samsung for the iPhone and Intel for the Macs, and especially to Atom's progress in the tablet segment. However, Samsung would remain as the foundry partner and memory provider, and is probably involved in the development of the Apple chip too, having licensed the ARM core. There is also speculation that Qualcomm would get an Apple slot at last, providing the 3G baseband for the tablet device. The iPhone uses Infineon. If Apple is, as rumored, producing a CDMA version of iSlate for Verizon Wireless, it would have to turn to Qualcomm, and may also choose the chip giant's advanced HSPA/+ silicon for releases for GSM carriers.
Kumar's research note, as quoted in EETimes, says: ''The key change in the component stack will be the application processor. Our checks indicate that Apple licensed the ARM Cortex core from Samsung but built out the rest of the silicon with the PA Semi design team. While Samsung will continue to supply the flash memory, it will be relegated to a foundry status for the application processor. We expect this silicon to populate future iterations of the iPhone.'' The analyst's production checks lead him to predict shipments of up to one million tablets in the first month, with a plateau of 400,000 to 500,000 units a month after that.
News of Apple's inhouse processor developments surfaced almost a year ago. The device maker had bought a year before that, looking to ramp up its own silicon activities and steal a march on rivals in emerging form factors like tablets. In these, differentiated silicon - in terms of power consumption and performance - will, for a while at least, be important to competitive positioning (unlike in conventional phones, where chip choice increasingly boils down to price).
In mid-2009 Apple enlarged its chip design team with a focus on expertise in low power and graphics/video/virtual reality. The hiring spree included Raja Koduri, formerly CTO of AMD's graphics group.
At the time of the PA acquisition, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said the company was geared to running increasingly complex software on the iPhone and iPod. "You can't just go out and buy the chips off the shelf to do that," he said in an interview. |
