Cupertino (CA) – Apple today confirmed that it will be purchasing PA Semi, a fabless developer of multi-core processors, for $278 million. Is there trouble ahead for Intel?    

Forbes broke the story this morning after several days of rumors that Apple and PA Semi have been in negotiations. “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not comment on our purposes and plans," told Apple spokesman Steve Dowling the publication. Apple declined to comment any further but we expect to get more details during Apple’s Q1 earnings conference call later today.

Speculations about Apple’s motivation to buy PA Semi are already flying, with the most popular being that PA Semi’s technology could be used for future iPhone processors. PA Semi employs about 150 people and produced its first product in Q2 of 2007 – the 2 GHz PWRficient PA6T-1682M processor. The 65 nm, 200-million-transistor dual-core chip is said to consume between 5 and 13 watts of power. The processor integrates 2 MB shared L2 cache, two DDR2 controllers as well as the CPU subsystems such as transaction trace memory and I/O. Both cores have access to 128 KB dedicated cache as well as built-in acceleration engines, for example for TCP/IP and security computations. According to PA semi, the I/O subsystem supports eight PCI Express controllers, two 10-Gigabit Ethernet controllers and four Gigabit Ethernet controllers. The company claims that the platform can scale to 2.5 GHz and up to eight cores.

Previously, the processor was pitched as a potential rival for Intel’s Core 2 Duo and AMD’s Athlon X2 processors, which raises questions whether this technology is really suitable for an iPhone.

However, we are pretty sure that Intel will be talking to Apple about this deal. Especially since the company plans to sell Moorestown CPUs to Apple as iPhone processors beginning in 2010.

Back to the Power architecture?

Apr 23, 2008 10:13     

Wow, buying a CPU company is a pretty concrete commitment. Apparently, Jobs isn't so enamored with x86 over IBM's Power after all.
Shaun report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +2

Dumb move if

Apr 23, 2008 11:32     

This is a dumb move if Apple is planing on going away from the x86 architecture. There is already heavy resistance to developing for the mac. Just imagine if they switch from x86. Oh and don't say Java. Sun typically doesn't release VM's for non x86 platforms. Non x86 is usually left up to 3rd parties and most are not well performed.
Action Jackson report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +3

Just to close it?

Apr 23, 2008 11:46     

I don't think apple is going back to Power processor, but it is very easy for apple to move from one platform to another. All new applications for the mac, including its OS X are "Universal" that means that they can run in both platform, PowerPC and Intel. So may be, Apple just used intel in order to gain Windows users, Just may be.
Viktor report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +4

Re: Just to close it?

Apr 23, 2008 12:24     

Ah... "Universal" means emulation. Emulation means SLOOOW! Bad move by Apple. Just another way for Apple to rap it's consumers.
Marko report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Re:Just to close it?

Apr 23, 2008 15:31     

no, "UNIVERSAL" does not means emulation. Intel Macs have "ROSETA" to emulate PowerPC Macs, but Universal applications are compiled for both processors, so a "universal binary" application, runs natively on both platforms.
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iPhone... please...

Apr 23, 2008 19:14     

I think people may be forgetting that there's more to Apple than just the iPhone... I'm not saying i have any clue (or care) as to what they're planning. Just find it funny that everyone immediately jumps to the conclusion that this is for the iphone...
Epsilon report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

reinventing apple

Apr 24, 2008 04:33     

Isn't it obvious? apple always reinvents whom they are every couple of years. This is.. just another one... get ready!
Alien report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Re: Just to close it?

Apr 24, 2008 08:54     

From Apples webset: "Here are all the instructions you’ll need: double-click the application icon. Behind the scenes, Rosetta dynamically translates most of your PowerPC-based applications to work with your Intel-based Mac." Weather you call it a virtual machine which "dynamically translates" or emulation IT'S STILL SLOW.
Marko report abuse vote down vote up Votes: +0

Re:Just to Close it?

Apr 24, 2008 14:47     

Sorry for the confusion: "Here are all the instructions you’ll need: double-click the application icon. Behind the scenes, Rosetta dynamically translates most of your PowerPC-based applications to work with your Intel-based Mac." Yes, that would happen if you run PPC applications on INTEL processors. But if you run a Universal Binary, roseta is not necessary. "To ease this transition while retaining and improving upon the remarkable performance of Mac OS X, Apple has introduced universal binaries, a format that places native code for both architectures in one package." http://developer.apple.com/macosx/adoptinguniversalbinaries.html

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