Apple has reportedly hired multiple Intel engineers for a chip research facility in Washington County, OR

[captain_to_fire]

Source: 9to5 Mac

 

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Apple has reportedly poached multiple engineers and research staff from Intel for a new facility in Washington County, close to the chipmaker’s home base. The hiring appears to have begun back in November, and is likely to further fuel speculation about Apple replacing Intel chips with its own ARM-based Mac CPUs within the next few years …The news was reported by local site Oregon Live (via Patently Apple).

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Apple has a secret in Washington County. The Silicon Valley company has hired close to two-dozen people in a hardware engineering lab there, raiding Intel and other Oregon tech employers for a variety of roles, according to job postings, social media profiles and an individual familiar with Apple’s recruiting efforts […]

 

LinkedIn profiles indicate Apple has been hiring for its Washington County site since November and that a number of its new employees previously held senior research or engineering roles at Intel.

We recently outlined the reasons why such a move is likely part of the company’s plans for future Macs. Bringing former Intel engineers and researchers onto the team would certainly be an obvious step to take along the way.

And it looks like an ARM based MacBook/MacBook AIr is coming though not yet. Apple has done a lot of hiring lately. They hired Google's former AI chief mainly to improve machine learning algorithms and speech detection in Siri or do some ML in the camera just like Pixel 2. Now they hired a couple Intel engineers in Oregon which is obviously for chip reasons. Either:

1. Apple is designing their own x86/64 processors for their Macs which is unlikely since only Intel, AMD and VIA are the only ones who hold architectural licenses for x86.
2. They are ditching Intel for some of their laptops like the MacBook/Air which is very likely to happen
3. Apple is designing more coprocessors for their Macs. They already use ARM processors in their touchbar MacBook Pros (Secure Enclave) which generates and stores encryption keys locally just like in the iPhone/iPad.

If Apple where to embrace ARM for their Macs, it means they have to make macOS universal binary just like Mac OS X Tiger (2006) and Leopard (2007) which supports both Intel and PowerPC and applications have to be rewritten to support both PowerPC and Intel.

How to make macOS work on both ARM and Intel is up to them but if they can make existing .dmg programs or Mac App Store programs work natively on both ARM and x86/64 would be interesting. 

I'm guessing things like the Terminal, Automator and Boot Camp will be disabled on an ARM based MacBook but for most people, it might not be an issue. So it's probable that Apple is going to sell ARM based Macs for the low end ($1000 and below) but keep the Intel Macs for the MacBook Pros, iMacs, Mac minis and Mac Pros. If this is Apple's way to usurp Windows 10S on ARM, I think when it comes to chip prowess they're already ahead unless Microsoft designs their own chips just like Google.

A11 Bionic:

Snapdragon 845:

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

Just random 2 cents on the 2 cents.

 

12 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Apple is designing their own x86/64 processors for their Macs which is unlikely since only Intel, AMD and VIA are the only ones who hold architectural licenses for x86.

I'm pretty sure either company will be happy to license their architecture. Though Intel will make sure you bend over and be their bitch while they're at it.

 

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They are ditching Intel for some of their laptops like the MacBook/Air which is very likely to happen

I don't think they are, but considering they were perfectly willing to jump from PowerPC to x86, it's certainly a good possibility. But they'd have to tread carefully anyway. Intel threatened to sue ARM and Microsoft for trying to make an x86 emulator when Microsoft wanted to go back to getting Windows on ARM again. There was likely no kerfluffle with the PowerPC to x86 transition because Apple partially owns that architecture.

 

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Apple is designing more coprocessors for their Macs. They already use ARM processors in their touchbar MacBook Pros (Secure Enclave) which generates and stores encryption keys locally just like in the iPhone/iPad.

I don't think they'd need engineers from Intel to do that.

 

[Trixanity]

8 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

I'm pretty sure either company will be happy to license their architecture. Though Intel will make sure you bend over and be their bitch while they're at it.

Pretty sure they're not happy to do that - nor can they just go out and do that since they're cross-licensing.

Can't put a price on not having a competitor and definitely can't do that when the competitor has deep pockets. If Intel could (with no repercussions) eliminate AMD entirely, they'd have done that or just outright bought them to get rid of them.

[Mira Yurizaki]

Just now, Trixanity said:

Pretty sure they're not happy to do that - nor can they just go out and do that since they're cross-licensing.

Can't put a price on not having a competitor and definitely can't do that when the competitor has deep pockets. If Intel could (with no repercussions) eliminate AMD entirely, they'd have done that or just outright bought them to get rid of them.

The only stumbling block is getting IA-32 and x86 licenses, which sure, Intel is probably not going to allow to just anyone these days. However, x86-64 is not owned by Intel, it's wholly owned by AMD. So if you wanted just x86-64 (or rather the AMD64 implementation of it), you can get it from AMD without having to go to Intel.

[D13H4RD]

So......MacPad?

[Trixanity]

6 minutes ago, M.Yurizaki said:

The only stumbling block is getting IA-32 and x86 licenses, which sure, Intel is probably not going to allow to just anyone these days. However, x86-64 is not owned by Intel, it's wholly owned by AMD. So if you wanted just x86-64 (or rather the AMD64 implementation of it), you can get it from AMD without having to go to Intel.

There's more to it than that. Those are extensions to x86 and there are tons of instructions you'd need to license to be compatible. For one, the patents for x86 itself has expired and should be free to use in some fashion but it's pretty useless on its own.

 

It's just not happening because there is no interest in doing it. The risk far outweighs the benefits. For example if AMD had the greenlight to license out everything it'd be like pissing your pants to stay warm. Eventually a player like Apple would push AMD aside through sheer economic power. They actually licensed some tech to China but it's with a limited scope. And the China deal was total desperation on AMD's part.

The exclusive position AMD and Intel are in is invaluable and you'd be hard pressed to find either willing to give up market share for money. The money is temporary and will be gone fairly quickly. Long term the market share is better. That's it basically.

 

Intel is already worried enough about ARM encroaching on their territory. They lost the mobile space to it and Microsoft is pushing for ARM to move up to laptops. Apple with dual licenses could push better emulation and eventually displace Intel in their Mac lineup with little to no penalties since they'd have reverse engineered the shit out of it to make an ARM chip that can run existing software. Apple pays good money to Intel right now. They buy all Intel's most expensive SKUs that other OEMs won't touch. Microsoft may be able to borrow from Apple's work in some way whether directly through cross-licensing or through a weakened Intel to maneuver in the business side of things instead of the engineering. It's a can of worms that Intel or AMD wouldn't like to open.

[sazrocks]

1 hour ago, captain_to_fire said:

I'm guessing things like the Terminal, Automator and Boot Camp will be disabled on an ARM based MacBook 

Why?

[Christophe Corazza]

1 hour ago, huilun02 said:

They are secretly developing nuclear weapons. Will probably be sold as the 'iBomb'

 

You don't need Intel engineers for that though 

[captain_to_fire]

7 hours ago, sazrocks said:

Why?

I don’t think ARM supports virtualization 

[sazrocks]

2 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

I don’t think ARM supports virtualization 

1. What do any of those have to do with virtualization?

2. Everything supports virtualization; it just depends on how.

[Jtalk4456]

7 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

1. Apple is designing their own x86/64 processors for their Macs which is unlikely since only Intel, AMD and VIA are the only ones who hold architectural licenses for x86.

Correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't AMD own the 64 bit architecture and intel licences it from amd? Or did I understand it wrong

[captain_to_fire]

52 minutes ago, sazrocks said:

1. What do any of those have to do with virtualization?

2. Everything supports virtualization; it just depends on how.

Welp! Never mind that last one. I don't think Boot Camp would work on ARM especially Apple's own chips.

[captain_to_fire]

45 minutes ago, Jtalk4456 said:

Correct me if i'm wrong, but doesn't AMD own the 64 bit architecture and intel licences it from amd? Or did I understand it wrong

I think so.

[Taf the Ghost]

Apple has been building out a large GPU design presence in Austin, TX. Now they're adding another satellite with ex-Intel employees. However, Intel's research facility in Oregon isn't just CPU tech. They run a lot of other design branches out there, along with being their "design Fab". Apple would almost never bother to get into the Fab game (or they'd just buy GloFo and pump the money in to serve their own ends).

 

I think the better thought would be: Apple is going to start their own ISA.

 

It makes sense. They've already brought their graphics IP in-house, next would be the CPU cores themselves. They'd eventually leave the ARM license and move under something that they could merge their mobile & laptops under. (They'd probably keep the desktop CPUs from Intel, just so they don't have to stretch the designs that far.)

[Starelementpoke]

Man, is it bad I was kinda hoping it would say they hired Raja specifically? 

[captain_to_fire]

2 hours ago, Starelementpoke said:

Man, is it bad I was kinda hoping it would say they hired Raja specifically? 

But Apple hired Google’s AI chief and Google hired Apple’s former chip designer so both companies are up to something. 

[captain_to_fire]

12 hours ago, M.Yurizaki said:

they were perfectly willing to jump from PowerPC to x86

Because Steve Jobs is no longer satisfied with PowerPC’s product roadmap that’s why they moved to Intel and they failed to deliver a 3.0 GHz PowerPC Mac Pro G5. 

 

 

Edited June 1, 2018 by captain_to_fire

[Not_Jony_Ive]

and yet it will come out before the next generation mac mini. 

 

[DrMacintosh]

Apple: the first vertical monopoly tech company? 

 

They certainly seem to be in a better place than anyone else to do it. 

 

 

[Zodiark1593]

23 hours ago, Taf the Ghost said:

 

I think the better thought would be: Apple is going to start their own ISA.

 

It makes sense. They've already brought their graphics IP in-house, next would be the CPU cores themselves. They'd eventually leave the ARM license and move under something that they could merge their mobile & laptops under. (They'd probably keep the desktop CPUs from Intel, just so they don't have to stretch the designs that far.)

Apple launching their own ISA is a bit of a scary thought tbh, particularly if it makes porting between iOS and Android a pain in the rear.

[Taf the Ghost]

58 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Apple launching their own ISA is a bit of a scary thought tbh, particularly if it makes porting between iOS and Android a pain in the rear.

Well, it would also be the first major ISA to come out in, what, 20 years? We can get picky around iterations, but there are two dominant ISAs in the Compute space. Apple is in the type of position to act like the old Bell Labs and dump a good amount of money into "fundamental"-type research. If nothing comes of a new ISA research, that's fine, but Apple is clearly headed towards complete vertical integration. If the ISA is laid down in about 4-5 years, then they could take 4-5 years to completely transition their Ecosystem.