Chip Articles on TUAW - The Unofficial Apple Weblog

Apple helping to shape Intel's future

by Kelly Hodgkins (May 19th, 2011)

Intel Senior Vice president Tom Kilroy revealed that Intel is working closely with Apple on future products. This relationship is so cozy that Kilroy claims Apple even "helps shape our roadmap." Apple is an attractive customer for Intel as the Cupertino company is often regarded as ...

A5 beats Tegra 2 in benchmark tests, thanks to larger size

by Mike Schramm (Apr 11th, 2011)

GLBenchmark pitted a few tablet processors against each other in a speed showdown, and Apple's custom-designed A5 chip in the iPad 2 handily beats NVIDIA's Tegra 2 processor, used in competing tablets like the Motorola Xoom. A few analysts are saying that it's the size that matters in this case ...

Chipworks tears down Apple's A5 chip

by Chris Ward (Mar 15th, 2011)

Your inner (and outer) geek will thank you for checking out Chipworks' teardown of the A5 processor inside the iPad 2. Chipworks confirms that it is, in fact, made by Samsung and not by TSMC despite Apple's new deal with the latter. This may change in the future, however, especially if the A5 ...

Apple selects Taiwan's TSMC to produce its A5 chip

by Chris Ward (Mar 9th, 2011)

Apple is reported to have inked a deal with Taiwanese chip manufacturer TSMC to produce the A5 dual-core chip for the iPad 2, in a substantial blow to former producer Samsung. TSMC was apparently chosen over Samsung because tests showed it was consistently producing the chips more efficiently ...

Apple's A5 chip rumored to have 4X the power of A4

by Mike Schramm (Jan 17th, 2011)

AppleInsider is reporting that both the iPad 2 and the next generation of the iPhone, both rumored to be released later on this year, will feature the next generation of chips designed by Apple. The A5 (named after the A4, the current chip in most iOS devices) is rumored to have two cores, making ...

NYT: Chips like the A4 could cost $1 billion to design

by Mike Schramm (Feb 22nd, 2010)

Apple may have finally gotten the chip they wanted with the iPad's A4, but a little freedom from contracting with other chip makers didn't come cheap. In a piece about how to make silicon chips, the New York Times estimates the cost to put a chip like the A4 together at a whopping $1 billion. And ...

Rumor: Mac Pro Intel 6-core i7 this month

by Dave Caolo (Feb 2nd, 2010)

Apple's top-of-the-line Mac Pro hasn't been updated since the Quad-Core model received support for 16GB RAM in September of '09. The last major revision introduced the Nehalem Xeon 3500 Processor last March. Today, HardMac is reporting that the Core i7-980X and Core i7-970 processors could ...

Apple making its own chips starting with the A4

by Mike Schramm (Jan 27th, 2010)

Even though this morning's presentation had Apple calling themselves the "largest mobile device company" in the world, apparently they're in the processor business now, too. The just-announced iPad doesn't carry any special Intel or Nvidia CPU -- it's a homecooked 1GHz chip called the Apple A4. ...

Rumor: MacBook Pro Intel Arrandale processors in January

by Dave Caolo (Dec 1st, 2009)

Fudzilla is reporting that Intel will release Arrandale-based processors on January 3rd, 2010. Three in fact, branded as "Core i5" and "Core i7," ranging in speed from 2.4GHz to 2.66GHz. There are two Core i5 models. One features 3MB of cache, a 2.4GHz frequency, two cores and four threads plus ...

Apple will design its own tablet Mac chips

by Casey Johnston (Jul 15th, 2009)

Rumors have been crisscrossing the Internet about actions by Apple that point tellingly to the advent of an Apple tablet, or some kind of outsize iPod touch. VentureBeat is speculating that Apple may use chips they have developed themselves in the imminent $800 tablet computer. Following some of ...

Apple rumored not to renew contract with NVIDIA for graphics chips

by Casey Johnston (Jul 2nd, 2009)

The relationship between Apple and NVIDIA, the manufacturer of the graphics chips in most Macs for quite some time now, appears to be souring at an exponential rate. Electronista reports that negotiations between the two companies to continue their business relationship are not going well, with ...

WSJ: Apple moving into chip design

by Michael Rose (Apr 29th, 2009)

Papermaster. Drebin. Koduri. A law firm specializing in intellectual property? The backcourt starters for the Toronto Raptors? Three key graphics-chip experts now all on the Apple payroll? If you had option C on your answer card, congratulations: now you get to join the WSJ and Forbes in reading the ...

Apple investigates heat-to-electricity chip from Eneco

by Erica Sadun (Nov 22nd, 2006)

Apple Insider reports that a new chip that could convert heat into energy. The new "solid state energy conversion generation chip" is under development by chip maker Eneco. It works by grabbing electrons from a hot metal plate, passing them across a vacuum to a cold metal plate and capturing the ...

AMD acquires ATI for $5.4 billion

by David Chartier (Jul 24th, 2006)

AMD, the #2 CPU maker in the world, has announced a purchase of ATI, a leading graphics card manufacturer, for $5.4 billion. IMG has more details on the buyout and the business end of things, but we're more interested in finding out what exactly this means for the Mac market. ATI currently supplies ...

Is Apple first in line this January for the Yonnah?

by David Chartier (Dec 19th, 2005)

Engadget picked up on a post from ThinkSecret claiming that Apple could announce portables at Macworld '06 that just might be the some of the first available on the market to have Intel's new Yonah chips inside. Getting this close to Macworld there's no shortage of buzz and rumors flying ...

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