Could Apple’s PA Semi Purchase Signal A Power PC Laptop Revival?
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
by Charles W. Moore
Will we see PowerPC Apple laptops again? While most pundits and commentators weighing in with speculation as to what Apple may be about with its $278 million purchase of PowerPC chip design firm Palo Alto Semiconductor (PS Semi) last week have focused on potential use of PA Semi chips as an alternative to the current ARM-based iPhone chips or Intel’s forthcoming Atom mobile chip in future iPhones and iPods, a few are suggesting that the company’s innovative PA6T-1682M processor chip could actually end up in Apple laptops instead.
Phase one is to scare Intel into dropping prices by at least $278 million over two years, Cringely suggests, noting that Apple is (ironically) the last major all-Intel personal computer maker, while phase two would have Apple designing it’s own tailor-made CPU for Macintosh computers, both laptop and desktop. Note that PA Semi, which was founded way back in 2003, is a “fabless” microprocessor company, meaning they don’t manufacture chips, just design them, but of course Apple is well-versed in dealing with hardware manufacture subcontractors.
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An intriguing line of speculation, if a bit of a reach, with Apple’s across-the-board changeover from Power PC to Intel X86 CPU’s less than two and a half years old. However, I wouldn’t categorically dismiss the notion either, and ZNet blogger Paul Murphy says: he is betting that Apple will make PPC laptops again, noting that the PWRficient PA6T-1682M CPU is especially well-suited to laptop applications, combining a power-parsimonious 15 watt Thermal Design Power (TDP) 2+ GHz dual-core, dual-Altivec, 64-bit Power PC “system-on-a-chip” design with 2 MB of level 2 cache per core, plus hardware packet management (integrated acceleration for encryption and decryption processing), on board memory busing, and eight concurrent PCI/E channels.
Sounds delightful, especially in the context of Apple’s obsessive drive to make thinner and thinner notebook form factors. For example, the Intel Core 2 Duo Penryn chips being used in the current MacBook Pros a have a TDP of 35 watts, so one could expect laptops with PA Semi PA6T-1682M CPUs to run cooler and longer on a battery charge, although performance relative to the Intel Core 2 Duo is a question mark at this vantage point, but Robert Cringely notes that Intels’ X86 chips offer no true advantages for running OS X, since it, as a Unix variant, was never designed specifically for X86, making a lot of Intel hardware simply unnecessary, and that PA Semi PPC chips these chips should run OS X faster than Intel’s Core 2 Duo CPUs on a per-watt basis. PA Semi reportedly claims that it’s PPC CPUs are a whopping 300% more efficient than any comparable competitors, consuming only 5 to 13 watts running at 2 gigahertz.
The advantage in the context of portable computers is obvious. The heat-generating capacity of Apple’s Core Duo and Core 2 Duo powered portables is legendary, and even the middling to faster G4s like my 1.33 GHz PowerBook G4 generate plenty of heat. Apple has even stopped referring to its ‘Books as laptops and explicitly warns against using them on one’s lap. Not a satisfactory state of affairs, and while the there has been progress in getting the Core 2 Duos to run a bit cooler than, say, the blistering hot Core Duos used in the earliest MacIntel ‘Books which ran at at Internal temperatures high enough to fry egg ( Intel rated the Core Duo for service up to 100° C/ 212° F). The relentless fan cycling is just about the only thing I really dislike about my 17-inch PowerBook, but I dislike that a whole lot. It doesn’t augur well for my level of content and comfort with a MacBook, which is one reason why I haven;t been in a particular hurry to switch up.
A while back I mused in a column that I’ve been keeping my fingers crossed that there will be some breakthrough on the heat issue, but if none was forthcoming, one had to wonder if portable computer design had not come up hard against a “glass ceiling” of sorts in terms of performance advancement, and somewhat wistfully speculated that perhaps there will be a technology breakthrough that will result in quiet laptops than can officially be called &”laptops” again without courting litigation from someone whose thighs got roasted.
I hoped Intel would be able to produce a modern CPU for portables that runs relatively cool and doesn’t require batteries with the potency of nuclear fission to power it and noisy fans to keep it from self-immolating, but it seems that PS Semi has already come up with such a design, only it uses Power PC technology rather than Intel’s X86.
Which doesn’t particularly bother me. I like Power PC. I’m not prejudiced against Intel and happily acknowledge that Apple’s shift to Intel CPUs has been a rip-roaring success in terms of gaining market share and converts to the Mac platform, but as a passive holdout PPC-user it has always seemed to me that the Power PC had more elegance about it than the X86 platform does, so I wouldn’t have the slightest objection to Apple switching back to a Power PC platform for at least some of its portables, especially with the range of advantages
that the PA Semi PWRficient chips evidently would provide.
Of course there are other obstacles, It can’t be gainsaid that an important factor - arguably THE most important factor - in the breakaway surge in Apple hardware popularity has been the ability of Intel Macs to run Windows natively and efficiently, something Power PC chips can’t do. Another is that Intel has proved to be a good partner willing to work with Apple to accommodate design objectives such as the razor-thin form factor of the MacBook Air, which required a whole new special downsized Core 2 Duo chip to be engineered to make it work. Apple would want to think long and hard before doing anything that could jeopardize or marginalize such a positive partnership.
And Apple’s interest in PA Semi might have nothing at all to do with consumer system CPUs, at least not directly. A consideration that didn’t immediately spring to mind when I heard news of the PA Semi acquisition is that according to ZNet’s Paul Murphy, Apple has been under pressure from Department of Defense customers to come up with more secure, made-in-America hardware, and following through on that could net from three to five hundred thousand sales of PPC based, MacOS X systems to the DOD annually, and of course economies of scale would be optimized by selling civilian versions of such machines to the general public. It’s more than worth noting that a major portion of PA Semi’s business is selling chips for use by the military, including major defense contractors like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.
Indeed, it’s all very intriguing, and it will be fascinating to see how it plays out.
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