MacNoob

Apple’s recent hiring of Bob Drebin has sparked a tsunami of speculation as to Apple’s intentions regarding chip design and manufacture.  AppleInsider points to LinkedIn profiles of Drebin and Wei-han Lein to support their speculation about a new, home-grown mobile processor for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch successors.  With last year’s purchase of PA Semi, over $25 billion in the bank and all the new hardware hotshots including Mark Papermaster, Apple seems to have all the pieces in place to mount a serious effort to design and build its own chips.  The question is: For what?

Consensus among pundits points to the afore-mentioned mobile processor and that may be true, but I think they have something else up their sleeve.  Looking closely at Mr. Papermaster’s hardware group, one finds a ton of engineers (some say over 100) with graphic chip design and manufacturing backgrounds.  I’m starting to believe Apple has a desire to make its own graphics hardware.  Here’s why…

1. OpenCL technology (that leverages GPU capabilities) built into Snow Leopard promises to take OS X performance to the next level once application development catches up to the standard.  This just feels like something Apple would leverage by controlling the hardware and API completely.
2. Intel and Nvidia sue each other so frequently their lawyers have their own parking spots at the courthouse.  Apple has clearly staked its foreseeable [Mac]hardware designs on Intel and everyone seems to agree, that was the correct move.  If the squabbling gets nastier, Apple may have to distance itself from Nvidia to avoid getting caught in the middle.
3. AMD (owners of ATI) has to be reeling from the exodus en masse of their key engineering people.  I don’t think their graphics product pipeline has run empty yet, but with so many ex-employees now in Cupertino, ATI no longer seems like the kind of company Apple would need to partner with.
4. If ATI and NVidia are both undesirable, that leaves…NOBODY! (Yes, I know Intel makes graphics chipsets, but Apple’s last hardware refresh ditched them altogether.  The divorce is final.) Apple clearly hopes to make OpenCL a differentiator between OS X and Windows.  Given its history of tight (and closed) coupling of OS X to its hardware, Apple may not wish to bet the farm on any technology they don’t own outright.

Any of these reasons, taken separately, don’t amount to much, but together they make a strong argument for both the means and motive for Apple to build their own graphics hardware.  Couple that with a $25 billion bankroll and there’s no doubt they could if they wanted to.  Now it’s just a question of Apple’s desire and few ever seem to guess that right.

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