Apple keep options open with Freescale Semiconductor
August 28th, 2005 Leave a comment Visited 49 times, 2 so far today
Apple keep options open with Freescale Semiconductor
Apple somewhat shocked the tech world sometime back when it announced the plans to move to Intel processor based platform. The company currently uses PowerPC microprocessors bulk of which are purchased from IBM. While, IBM has decided to move on with their Cell processor, which is due to be showcased in the next year’s launch of Sony PlayStation 3, Apple has this news for us.
The Macintosh maker has just signed on a deal with Freescale Semiconductor according to which they would have the purchasing right to buy processors from the company till 2008. This report was made public after the company filed this with the Securities and Exchange Commission. This contract means that Freescale would be filling in any orders from Apple over the next three years.
The company develops the G4 processor which is used in some of the lesser powerful machines from the company like the iBook laptops and the Mac Mini. However, it is not clear how many processors would the company order in the coming years considering the switch to Intel processors is expected to be complete by 2007. Apple has declined to comment on these reports. There is also no figures available on how many processors Apple has ordered in the recent times.
It might just be the case of playing safe if the demand of PowerPC based Apple computers remains in the coming times as apple moves onto Intel platform.
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August 28th, 2005 at 11:37 pm
As I remember when Steve announced using Intel, he also commented that the updated Xcode (?) would produce both Intel and PPC binaries. If all the new Mac program releases include both binaries, who needs to worry about which processor is used.