Just Another Chip on Apple's Shoulder

Well, iPhone and iPod could be two very good reasons (if the power consumption cranks down)—and perhaps Apple TV and Time Capsule even more so. Then there are those mystery Apple products in development that will be rumors in the coming months. :)

Boutique chip designer P.A. Semi specializes in the embedded market. The company licenses IBM's Power Architecture, which would return Apple to its PowerPC roots. P.A. Semi (can we rename it iSemi?) produces what it calls the low-power PWRficient family of microprocessors. The multicore chips use a crossbar interconnect for improving processing efficiency in parallel fashion. Lower power and multicore are features ideally suited for smaller computing and communications devices.

Presumably Apple would pick up Dan Dobberpuhl, whose claims to fame include the DEC Alpha and StrongARM processors, a 150-member engineering team and 50 filed and pending patents. I remember the Alpha; great chip architecture ahead of its time but unable to compete against Intel x86 processors.

I believe that Forbes broke the story overnight. I read little more than the headline and first sentence (I prefer to do my own reporting before being influenced by anyone else's). Apple hasn't returned my call, yet, requesting confirmation on the acquisition. No doubt, someone will ask during Apple's fiscal 2008 second-quarter results conference call later today.

Posted by Joe Wilcox on April 23, 2008 12:21 PM