Apple's purchase of a microprocessor design firm has triggered a wave of speculation
over what the computer maker plans to do with its newly acquired assets. Perhaps,
the thinking goes, the purchase means a new chip to power future iPhone models.
Or maybe it will push Apple into new areas of portable computing. It might even
mean a return of sorts to the company's PowerPC days.

But after a closer look at the deal, the answer could be--and probably is--none
of the above.

The deal stirring up all this musing is Apple's
US$278 million purchase of P.A. Semi, first reported this week by Forbes.
News that Apple had bought the chip-maker led to blogosphere's near-immediate
conclusion that Apple planned to use that PA Semi's dual-core, 64-bit, low-power
PWRficient processor in future mobile products.

Forbes' initial report, for example claimed the P.A. Semi deal "could
spell a new future for Apple's flagship iPhone." Ars Technica concluded
that Apple's move "disses Intel's Atom"-a reference to the new low-power
processor line from Apple's chipmaker of choice.

Not so fast, folks.

Our take, shared by numerous other industry analysts, is that Apple's relationship
with Intel is strong and continuing. Instead, as Tim Bajarin, president of consulting
firm Creative Strategies, told Macworld, adding P.A. Semi to Apple's holdings
seems to be "more about buying the talent needed to help customize designs
on various chips Apple will need if they are to continue to innovate."

Put another way, Apple didn't buy P.A. Semi for its PWRficient processor (known
more prosaically to chipheads as the PA6T-1682M). Instead, it bought the engineering
expertise and low-power savvy of that company's 150-person team in order to
better work with suppliers such as Intel.

PWRficient vs. Penryn

A quick comparison of the PWRficient processor and Intel's line provides proof.
First, although the PWRficient can indeed be considered a "low-power"
chip when compared to other processors of its class, it is in no way power-miserly
enough to fit into either an iPhone or a pocketable UMPC (ultra-mobile PC).
Its power requirements (known as its TDP, for Thermal Design Power) peak at
25 watts, which is far too greedy for handheld use. Even with all of its circuitry
asleep, it still requires a full watt of power--your iPhone of The Future would
be gasping for battery-breath in an unacceptably short time.

Compare the PWRficient processor's TDP with the ulta-low-power Penryn mobile
processors that Intel will reportedly release later this spring. Running at
1.2GHz and 1.4GHz, those Intel chips are scheduled to have TDPs in the 10-watt
range. And later this year, Intel plans to release an entirely new line of processors
codenamed Nahalem, which are certain to include ultra-low TDP variants, as well.
With these chips in the pipeline, there's no need for the PWRficient in Apple's
lineup.

Then there's Intel's aforementioned Atom
processor line. Although the PWRficient is a far more capable chip than anything
in the Atom line, its TDP keeps it from following the Atoms-which have TDPs
of less than a tenth of the PWRficient's-into phones, UMPCs, and even ultra-mobile
laptops such as the Asus
EeePC.

Finally, there's the simple fact that the PWRficient uses the same instruction
set as Apple's pre-Intel microprocessor, the PowerPC from IBM and Freescale
(née Motorola). For our money, it's extremely unlikely that Apple would
force its developers to resume coding-and, especially, optimizing their code-for
the PowerPC. Not going to happen--especially not after Apple moved away from
the PowerPC nearly three years ago when it announced the transition to Intel-supplied
chips.

Future possibilities

That said, there's currently one major Apple product that isn't open to third-party
developers--the Apple
TV. The PWRficient could find its way into that box, especially considering
that the Apple TV is plugged into good ol' AC so TDP is a non-issue. That said,
it's hard to fathom what Apple might gain from swapping the Apple TV's Intel
processor with a PWRficient.

So don't look for a PWRficient processor in your iPhone or a future ultra-mobile
'Book. However, do look for contributions by members of the team that created
it to appear in Apple's relationship with Intel and other component suppliers.
As Apple has proven in the past with other acquisitions such as Silicon
Color and Proximity,
it's the engineers that count. In those two deals, for example, Apple added
resources that resulted in Final Cut Studio 2's Color
and Final Cut
Server.

It's a safe bet that P.A. Semi's engineers won't be adapting the PWRficient
for use in future Apple products. As Bajarin said, they instead "will serve
as a specialized unit that works with third party vendors like Intel to make
their chips more customized, especially when this is important to industrial
design." To us, that sounds well worth $278 million.

[Rik Myslewski has been writing about the Mac since 1989. He has been editor
in chief of MacAddict (now Mac|Life), executive editor of MacUser and director
of MacUser Labs, and executive producer of Macworld Live.]

» posted by abennett

Macworld.com

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