Why cell wasn't chosen for Mac

[bbot]

From xlr8yourmac.com:

"Also, all the cell people and the AMD people need to be quiet. Apple evaluated both. AMD has the same, if not worse, supply problems as IBM. Their roadmap is fine, but the production capacity is not.

The tested Cell as well. That processor is NOT intended for PC applications. (it was designed for game systems, not as a general use CPU) The lack of out of order execution and ILP control logic creates very poor performance with existing software. Having developers rewrite for cell would have been MUCH more work than reworking for Intel. And that's what this is, you rework your codebase in ALL cases, not rewrite it. "

 

[jvd]

yea amd would have a hard time shipping enough cpus for windows and mac . THey just aren't as big as intel. It was a wise choice for apple

 

[Qroach]

Is this official? Apple is switching to Intel?

 

[Carl B]

Is this official? Apple is switching to Intel?

What? QRoach where have you been!

(another way of me saying yes it's official)

The phase-in/phase-out begins next year with the mini and notebooks, is completed in the upper end machines mid-2007.

 

[Edge]

> "AMD has the same, if not worse, supply problems as IBM."

Funny considering how many machines Apple ships in a year, and last time I checked AMD is x86 compatible, so why the 'exclusive' relationship with Intel. Apple is beginning to sound like Dell.

AMD offers higher performance for a cheaper price, but I guess Apple wants to maintain their high retail pricing.

 

[Carl B]

> "AMD has the same, if not worse, supply problems as IBM."

Funny considering how many machines Apple ships in a year, and last time I checked AMD is x86 compatible, so why the 'exclusive' relationship with Intel. Apple is beginning to sound like Dell.

AMD offers higher performance for a cheaper price, but I guess Apple wants to maintain their high retail pricing.

Word is that Intel is very much more a marketing-style tech company, similar (though lesser) than Apple - and they felt co-branding/marketing efforts would yield more than efforts with AMD. And they're probably right...

They actually mentioned the AMD chips and said they vetted them and in fact didn't have a problem with AMD's roadmap - it was just the over-arching business strategy that more or less assured Intel it's place.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Considering MS are able to fab IBM CPUs at a non-IBM CPU company, why couldn't Apple take any technology (AMD) and fab it wherever they want?

 

[Carl B]

Considering MS are able to fab IBM CPUs at a non-IBM CPU company, why couldn't Apple take any technology (AMD) and fab it wherever they want?

Ok so MS IS going to fab the CPU's at TSMC? I thought for the CPU's they were going to have to be sourced from IBM themselves, but I've been unclear on this for quite some time.

 

[Brimstone]

Considering MS are able to fab IBM CPUs at a non-IBM CPU company, why couldn't Apple take any technology (AMD) and fab it wherever they want?

Ok so MS IS going to fab the CPU's at TSMC? I thought for the CPU's they were going to have to be sourced from IBM themselves, but I've been unclear on this for quite some time.

No, Chartered Semiconductor has a baby twin to Fishkill.

 

[Carl B]

No, Chartered Semiconductor has a baby twin to Fishkill.

Brimstone your baby twin analogy throws me, but you're saying then that Chartered will be fabbing the XeCPU?

 

[Brimstone]

No, Chartered Semiconductor has a baby twin to Fishkill.

Brimstone your baby twin analogy throws me, but you're saying then that Chartered will be fabbing the XeCPU?

If all three game companies ramp new chips to high volume this year, IBM will not have enough capacity to support them all at its 300-mm fab in East Fishkill, N.Y., believes Len Jelinek, director and principal analyst, semiconductor manufacturing, for market research firm iSuppli Corp. If all goes according to plan, IBM should be needing to spin some of this wafer demand off to Chartered during the latter part of this year. Jelinek said that IBM's East Fishkill fab was capable of producing about 18,000 300-mm wafers per month.

...


Is Chartered's involvement is a positive for customers like Nintendo and Microsoft? "That's a good assumption," said IBM's Lang. "If you look at what's happening with the common platform and our technologies, and the feedback from major customers, it's all positive, because look at what we're doing: We're bringing IBM technology in a collaboration mode to the marketplace with a huge capex sitting behind us now, because of our partners.

http://www.semireporter.com/public/9187.cfm

 

[Qroach]

Seriously tho, I hadn't heard a peep about this. I've been crazy busy lately.

 

[phat]

I think the biggest factor for Apple is mobile computing. Laptops are selling faster than desktops, and IBM doesn't have as comprehensive a road map for mobile CPUs as Intel. And forget AMD for supply and Cell for mobile.

The company with the most to lose potentially from Apple's switch is Microsoft. There may come a day when anyone who buys a PC from their local BestBuy can just as easily request OS X as Windows.

 

[Qroach]

i've been waiting for that for a long time. I'm much rather run MAC osx at home.

 

[Carl B]

No, Chartered Semiconductor has a baby twin to Fishkill.

Brimstone your baby twin analogy throws me, but you're saying then that Chartered will be fabbing the XeCPU?

If all three game companies ramp new chips to high volume this year, IBM will not have enough capacity to support them all at its 300-mm fab in East Fishkill, N.Y., believes Len Jelinek, director and principal analyst, semiconductor manufacturing, for market research firm iSuppli Corp. If all goes according to plan, IBM should be needing to spin some of this wafer demand off to Chartered during the latter part of this year. Jelinek said that IBM's East Fishkill fab was capable of producing about 18,000 300-mm wafers per month.

...


Is Chartered's involvement is a positive for customers like Nintendo and Microsoft? "That's a good assumption," said IBM's Lang. "If you look at what's happening with the common platform and our technologies, and the feedback from major customers, it's all positive, because look at what we're doing: We're bringing IBM technology in a collaboration mode to the marketplace with a huge capex sitting behind us now, because of our partners.

http://www.semireporter.com/public/9187.cfm

Ok gotcha - it wouldn't be Microsoft with the right to switch production bases, but IBM doing the outsourcing for their own contractual needs. Not as good an arrangement as full independence on Microsoft's part, but at least I understand how Chartered is factoring in here now.

 

[wazoo]

i've been waiting for that for a long time. I'm much rather run MAC osx at home.

You will not be able to run OSX on non-MAC computers.

 

[Qroach]

not yet.

 

[phat]

i've been waiting for that for a long time. I'm much rather run MAC osx at home.

You will not be able to run OSX on non-MAC computers.

This used to be a technical assertion. Now, it's just a marketing decision.

 

[gurgi]

I wonder if osx will be able to run windows apps better now. This has to make emulation easier, right?

 

[Magnum PI]

on x86 macos X it should be possible to use wine.