AMD Attracts Apple's Top Chip Architect Jim Keller

[JMcEntegart]

AMD grabs the man from Apple who helped design the chips behind the iPhone, iPad, and contributed to the design of the MacBook Air.

AMD Attracts Apple's Top Chip Architect Jim Keller : Read more

 

[ilysaml]

Now we Can expect a new competition in CPUs Market.

 

[fazers_on_stun]

Finally, some good news for AMD.

 

[killerclick]

[citation][nom]ilysaml[/nom]Now we Can expect a new competition in CPUs Market.[/citation]

Now we can expect competition in 3-4 years. That's how long it will take, AMD's been developing Fusion since 2006, they can't just pull a new architecture out of this guy's ass.

 

[alyoshka]

Apple.... oh that's sad..... AMD really ought to think of fresh minds..... Hiring someone from the Apple team isn't something of a mark of progress..... since it's not SJ himself....

 

[Guest]

Doesnt Arm make Apple CPU's? Did he work for Arm or Apple?

 

[Guest]

Arm dosn't make CPUs, they design architectures which companies then license to produce their own chips. So the A4 / A5 were based on the ARM architecture, but designed and built by Apple.

And @alyoshka... they hardly just poached some guy from Apple, this is the dude who was responsible for the K8. AKA the last time AMD came up with a decent architecture.

 

[hotroderx]

How long before Apple takes AMD to court over this saying AMD infringed on its CPU designs thanks to this guy. How long before Apple goes after this guy directly saying he is in breach of contract and can not work with AMD at all.

 

[memadmax]

Oh wow, now this is a surprise.

I bet everyone on the Apple side are like: "Where did the magical unicorn go?", with big watery eyes that look like Finn's eyes when he's around the bubble gum princess in "Adventure Time"......

 

[vipervoid1]

Hmm....
AMD and Apple changing their engineer ?? ~
Let see what these engineer can help them ~

 

[spookyman]

So will this make AMD or Apple better?

 

[guderiancol]

It is for phone and tablets market.

 

[teh_chem]

Interesting! 2 weeks ago we discovered that a graphics architect from AMD has been hired at Apple, now we're hearing about a chip designer from Apple has moved to AMD.

[citation][nom]alyoshka[/nom]Apple.... oh that's sad..... AMD really ought to think of fresh minds..... Hiring someone from the Apple team isn't something of a mark of progress..... since it's not SJ himself....[/citation]

Are you kidding? While I don't really like or respect Apple as a company, they have a significant amount of cutting-edge chip engineers.

[citation][nom]hesus[/nom]Doesnt Arm make Apple CPU's? Did he work for Arm or Apple?[/citation]
Apple designed and engineered the ARM processors that went in to Apple devices. But the architecture design knowledge that this person might bring could benefit any sort of architecture. I'm curious if they're interested in him for their desktop/laptop applications with current x86 architectures, or if they're interested into branching into ARM-based platforms.

 

[11796pcs]

[citation][nom]hesus[/nom]Doesnt Arm make Apple CPU's? Did he work for Arm or Apple?[/citation]
Apple designs the CPUs which are based off of the ARM architecture.

 

[Guest]

No, no, no! He never "designed" any chips. He simply placed and ARM CPU next to a Video Chipset and called it A4, A5, etc.

So if AMD wants someone that can put colored blocks next to each other and call it a "design", then I say; Let em have em! Just more junk AMD CPU "designs" down the road, lol!

:facepalm:

 

[aracheb]

[citation][nom]deicist[/nom]Arm dosn't make CPUs, they design architectures which companies then license to produce their own chips. So the A4 / A5 were based on the ARM architecture, but designed and built by Apple.And @alyoshka... they hardly just poached some guy from Apple, this is the dude who was responsible for the K8. AKA the last time AMD came up with a decent architecture.[/citation]
co-author of the 64 bit x86 spec and part of the system engineering team that launched K7.
i mean, co-author of the 64 bit that everybody use today. And also part of the team the launched the k7. " the processor that wiped Intel behinds for almost 4 years, the wiping was so bad that they had to fall to monopolistic/bribing tactics to keep business"

 

[ewood]

[citation][nom]IJustWantToPost22[/nom]No, no, no! He never "designed" any chips. He simply placed and ARM CPU next to a Video Chipset and called it A4, A5, etc. So if AMD wants someone that can put colored blocks next to each other and call it a "design", then I say; Let em have em! Just more junk AMD CPU "designs" down the road, lol![/citation]
[citation][nom]hesus[/nom]Doesnt Arm make Apple CPU's? Did he work for Arm or Apple?[/citation]

he was part of the team the put colored blocks together to make K8; Id say its valuable to have him back.

 

[horaciopz]

I dont mind if AMD invents a technology to resurrect Steve Jobs and hire him as president to lead the way for AMD. I only want is to AMD to develop better products and make a sane competition against Intel. If this helps, great. But We all are going to see in long term what will happen. I just hope AMD Improves.

 

[rebel1280]

[citation][nom]alyoshka[/nom]Apple.... oh that's sad..... AMD really ought to think of fresh minds..... Hiring someone from the Apple team isn't something of a mark of progress..... since it's not SJ himself....[/citation]
Dude, did you not read it? He was at AMD first....
[citation][nom]hesus[/nom]Doesnt Arm make Apple CPU's? Did he work for Arm or Apple?[/citation]
He worked for a Chip company Apple bought...
[citation][nom]spookyman[/nom]So will this make AMD or Apple better?[/citation]
Most definitely AMD
[citation][nom]horaciopz[/nom]I dont mind if AMD invents a technology to resurrect Steve Jobs and hire him as president to lead the way for AMD. I only want is to AMD to develop better products and make a sane competition against Intel. If this helps, great. But We all are going to see in long term what will happen. I just hope AMD Improves.[/citation]
Agreed, except for the Steve Jobs bit, thought would be interesting to see if he would say he would go nuclear on Intel as he did with Android lol

 

[rantoc]

I bet it was more interesting to actually create the chip logic rather than glue licensed parts together on a SoC - I know i would!

 

[ashinms]

It isn't like he just super glued a GPU to an arm CUP at apple. The instruction set is licensed to apple by arm. How the transistors are arranged to complete those instructions and the microcode that manages the communications between GPU and GPU (well, pretty much all microcode) are up to apple to design. His part would have been crucial to creating an efficient and capable architecture to execute the ARM instruction set.

 

[Wisecracker]

This could be one of the final pieces in bringing the HSA arch, unified memory addressing for CPU and 'SIMD Engine Array' cores, and third-party IP (cough-cough ...ARM) onto a single SoC.

 

[-Fran-]

Nice one, AMD. Time to bring back the talent into the design team.

Cheers!

 

[DjEaZy]

AMD Attracts Apple's Top Chip Architect Jim Keller... but maybe... just maybe this was an exchange...

 

[internetlad]

Yeah, when I think of powerful processors and SoCs, about the last thing I think about is "Apple products"

Best of luck to them, But I don't forsee this swaying anything.