This is Intel's just determined to give up the mobile SoC business, while at the other end, Apple is screaming on the road of self-developed chips, and the farther and farther.
Since the release of the iPhone 4 in 2010, Apple has adopted its own A4 processor. Since then, Apple's every generation of mobile device processors (including iPhone, iPad) are using ARM's architecture license, Apple's own design, Samsung or TSMC foundry to develop and produce. However, this part of the self-research, previously limited to the application processor (AP), GPU and baseband chips are customary to purchase ImagiiniTion and Qualcomm's authorization.
Recently, foreign media reports indicate that Apple may have to get involved in GPU and baseband chip development. According to Apple's external recruitment information, they are looking for professionals in graphics chips; and a month ago, they were also recruiting jobs like "wireless hardware design engineers."
On the road of self-developed chips, what efforts has Apple made?
R & D chips most value talent and technology accumulation, and Apple's two acquisitions in the early years can be said to fundamentally promote the process of self-developed chips. Together they acquired PA Semi and the other was Intrinsity.
In 2008, Apple acquired PA Semi, a microprocessor design company known for designing low-power chips. Apple’s bid is 278 million dollars. Then in April 2010, Apple spent $121 million to acquire mobile chip maker Intrinsity, with the goal of also targeting the development of low-power ultra-fast processors.
In the next few years, you can slowly see the changes in the Apple processor. The iPhone 4, released in 2010, uses the A4 processor very close to the ARM standard S5PC110. By 2012, the A6 processor used on the iPhone 5 is already a non-ARM standard architecture processor. In addition to the iPhone, the iPad product line also directly benefits from the self-developed chip.
With its own processor, Apple is more and more comfortable in the promotion of the product - the hardware and software design of the new model is optimized from the underlying chip, while the old processor continues to be decentralized, compared with any single Andorid model. Both form a leading position in technology and sales volume.
In the process of Apple's processor development capabilities, one person has to mention, former Intel and IBM executive Johny Srouji; today, he is Apple's senior vice president of hardware technology.
Johny joined Apple in 2008 and led the development of the A4 processor; now his team is involved in everything from industrial design to software development. From Apple's management structure today, it can be seen that chip development has been the same as Apple's top-level strategy, even for industrial design and software engineering, and even the center of Apple's mobile devices.
Behind PowerVR, what kind of company is ImaginaTIon?
Synchronized with Apple's self-developed A-series processors, starting in 2010, Apple processors began integrating PowerVR GPUs.
Behind PowerVR, ImaginaTIon is a UK company that designs and operates the IP of SoCs. Coincidentally, ARM, the world's largest operating company of SoC IP, is also a British company. ImaginaTIon enjoys the "ARM second" reputation in the industry.
In terms of technology, Imagination is currently the absolute leader of mobile platform GPU licensing, followed by Qualcomm's own Adreno GPU and the fast-growing ARM Mail GPU in the past two years. In addition, Imagination's tentacles are wide, not limited to the ARM camp, Intel's Atom processor uses the PowerVR series of GPU cores. Imagination's existing authorized business partners include Apple, Intel, MTK, LG, Qualcomm, Sony, Samsung, HiS, and more.
Prior to 2015, Intel and Apple were also shareholders of Imagination, but last year Intel announced that it would sell 4.9% of its shares; while Apple gained nearly 10% of Imagination through several rounds of holdings. By March of this year, some media reported that the two high-level officials were in talks related to business acquisitions. Since then, Apple has acknowledged the acquisition of the two companies, but did not comment on this progress.
Whether it's a self-developed GPU or a baseband chip, Apple is trying to make its core supply chain more controllable. If you acquire Imagination, you can strengthen Apple's lead on the GPU, and also accelerate the integration of GPU and CPU. As for the baseband chip, Apple has previously reported that it will purchase 30% of the iPhone 7 baseband from Intel, thus reducing its reliance on Qualcomm.
Whether it's self-study or acquisition, GPUs and baseband chips won't come very quickly, but they will almost certainly happen.
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