Re:How Intel Missed the iPhone: The XScale Era
by GeekyBear on Saturday August 31, 2024 @03:11PM
(#41411120)
> TSMC doesn't have to pay ARM licensing costs
Intel already had an ARM license they had used to create their XScale line.
They decided to sell that line of business off to Broadcom instead of fabbing a chip for Apple.
Later they decided their failure to enter the mobile device market was a big enough error that they burned through about a billion dollars in a failed attempt to push x86 as a viable alternative to ARM for mobile devices.
Re:How Intel Missed the iPhone: The XScale Era
by qwytw on Sunday September 01, 2024 @03:00AM
(#41414894)
Pretty much all PDA's (even devices like the first gen Kindle) were using Intel's ARM chips. There is no reasons to believe that whatever Apple needed would somehow have been extremely different from what their other clients used (and it's not like Apple had that much bargaining power those days anyway).
> Intel was absolutely correct to recognize Apple's attempt to cuck them here.
I see it the other way around. Unless Intel somehow severely fucked it up (not a distinct possibility, just Intel being Intel) Apple would probably be stuck with their chips both on mobile and laptop/desktop to this day.
Intel's margins made sense when they were selling pre-designed x86 CPUs for use in Macs. It expressly does not make sense when a company notorious for loving low margins asks you to design and manufacture a chip you won't be legally allowed to use anywhere else. Again - Intel was absolutely correct to recognize Apple's attempt to cuck them here.