26 ms·

Apple Hires Key Chip Designer From ARM as Own Efforts Ramp Up

272 points by malshe 7y ago

dang 7y ago
Url changed from https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/26/apple-arm-hire-mac/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/26/apple-arm-hire-mac/, which points to this.
- malshe 7y ago
  Thanks
BooneJS 7y ago
Mike’s a really sharp guy.
- sprafa 7y ago
  You’ve worked/met him?
  - scarcelycoher 7y ago
    you can see from the lumps in his head
  - BooneJS 7y ago
    Back when he was at Intel, our companies did some co-development.
Jerry2 7y ago
TFA starts off with a piece of actual news and then veers off into rumors and unsubstantiated BS which is presented as facts. >Apple is in the process of migrating its Mac line to ARM processors as it looks to reduce its reliance on Intel.
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
  That particular "fact" does have some substance to it- In the past, Apple has switched as they feel that CPU horsepower is holding them back (keep in mind that they really want people to buy new every year) and they have already started moving their lineups over to ARM- their iPads have been ARM forever, and they have a pretty big knowledge base in it now. EDIT: I think you may have been referring to the 9to5mac article- I'm going to leave this comment here, but the current article is way more specific.
  - bshipp 7y ago
    correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the reason they moved to Intel chips in the first place because their homegrown CPUs couldn't keep up? Has that calculus changed in the meantime?
    - Doctor_Fegg 7y ago
      PowerPC wasn’t really homegrown.
      - gumby 7y ago
        Though Apple was part of the original PowerPC consortium, and back then also had a chip team. Then again Apple was also the other partner (with Acorn) in founding ARM.
    - esmi 7y ago
      They switched because Freescale and IBM couldn’t keep up with Intel. Apple did not make CPUs at that time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%27s_transition_to_Intel_processors https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%27s_transition_to_Inte...
      - bshipp 7y ago
        Fair enough, I always associated PowerPC with Apple and assumed they were the driving force behind it's use. Regardless, that makes the financial calculus even more suspect as they would have even fewer units to amortize the cost over. But I don't work for Apple, and quite frankly the CPU market could certain use the injection of some more competition.
malshe 7y ago
Outline link: https://outline.com/D3sK4b https://outline.com/D3sK4b
helloworm 7y ago
Apple already makes the best custom ARM chips.. why would they need a dude from ARM? I think this is news for the sake of news. It’s just head hunting
- terandle 7y ago
  In the article it is mentioned that Apple's previous head architect left earlier this year so they needed a new one.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- samfisher83 7y ago
  They also have the most silicon to work with. If you are designing a chip with x resources vs y resources its kind of unfair to say one design is better than the other. One design is optimized for one thing vs another. Arm needs to sell to wide set of customers who might be more more price sensitive than apple. If I could create a chip with more decoders, alu units, cache, etc. I can design a faster chip, but it wouldn't necessarily mean I am a better designer than an engineer who works at company x.
  - monocasa 7y ago
    It's sort of a little bit of both. Like for sure their raw gate count is a huge part, but if you go look at a bunch of their acquisitions (particularly looking at Intrinsity here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsity ), they have a lot of really cool techniques for making their designs count even gate for gate. Intrinsity's work is neat, because they didn't really make any uarch changes or increase the gate count really, they just made their Cortex-A8 core way better which lets you judge the work in an apples to apples (lol) way that you normally don't get.
annoyingnoob 7y ago
Apple extends its ARM, gives Intel the finger.
deepnotderp 7y ago
It's not like Apple already has one of the world's best chip design teams...
jpeg_hero 7y ago
Is this really newsworthy? Sounds like an accomplished person, but is it really a key hire??
- MR4D 7y ago
  FTA: "At ARM, Filippo was a lead engineer behind chip designs... ...Filippo was also a key designer at chipmakers Advanced Micro Devices and Intel Corp." And his LinkedIn resume has much more detail - pretty impressive guy. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-filippo-ba89b9/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-filippo-ba89b9/
  - baybal2 7y ago
    Guy like Filippo, Keller, Koduri and such are pretty much like football players in the top leagues. Crazy signing bonuses, and clubs pay more for depriving an enemy team a key player, and assurance of him not playing against them, rather than for the genuine expectation of him performing for the team.
Razengan 7y ago
There are certainly many signs over the last few years that point to ARM Macs. I don't mind what CPU my Mac runs on, but I am worried about how long I'll be able to play older games, run the occasional Windows/Linux software, and dabble in OS hacking or low-level tinkering to add custom features, on the same machine. The seemingly gradual lockdown of macOS – mandatory "notarization", moving system files to a read-only volume, and disallowing kernel extensions in the future* – has generated some concern where before I used to just trust Apple to know what's best for everyone. I welcome the extra security as long as we can manually bypass it if we really want to, but I warily wonder if the move to ARM Macs will come with a macOS that is almost as locked-down or "sanitized" as iOS. * As mentioned during this WWDC's Platforms State of the Union.
- bredren 7y ago
  I have used multiple gens of the MacBook Air for web programming—often docked—most recently w the assist of an egpu. I am interested in battery efficiency, raw cpu and graphics performance and do not care to do low level tinkering on my Mac. I do expect it to be much more open to tinkering than iOS, but I also welcome the litany of security measures introduced so far and caution when it comes to executing wild code that affects my privacy. I realize this puts me further in with trusting Apple to make good compromise decisions on what is possible and the hoops they create for developers on Macos, but I trust they will mostly make the right call for me. It’s certainly been better than when I’ve had to deal with windows over the past decade.
  - cheeze 7y ago
    > do not care to do low level tinkering on my Mac You may not, but many do. Those many may actually be a small minority, but it would really suck for those folks. At the end of the day, sometimes I need to run random x86/64 executables and there isn't any way around that. I could deal with a performant virtual machine.
    - gigatexal 7y ago
      Drivers are moving to userspace. What more low level access do you need other than that if you can write your own driver for things?
ngcc_hk 7y ago
Just hope they have an AI gpu gp programme. Otherwise a bit forced to move to windows and linux currently even for my personal pc. (Cloud ok but offline or testing still want one close by. Current apple no Nvidia.)
CalChris 7y ago
Apple sells at least 10 ARM chips for every Intel chip already. Should this hire seem at all surprising regardless of future plans?
- xxs 7y ago
  this is unlikely when it comes to datacenters, where the large business is.
  - msh 7y ago
    That's not a large business for Apple.
    - rbanffy 7y ago
      And, considering competition is primarily on price, it makes no sense to be a business for Apple.
    - xxs 7y ago
      the response is to "Apple outsells Intel 10-to-1", where the vast majority of sells are non-end-user when it comes to Intel.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
dvdbloc 7y ago
I wonder how much that cost them...
blacksoil 7y ago
Considering the launch of Mac's App Store, the move to using LLVM IR-based distribution, and this, it sounds reasonable that they're trying to build an ARM-based MacBook! And considering the present state that OSX performs much better than Windows of the same hardware spec, it would be really a big game changer if Apple were to succeed in creating a performant ARM-based Macbook! Battery life of such Macbook would be super crazy and I guess more people would move over to Mac? I hope Linux and Microsoft do something before this happens...

272 points by malshe 7y ago

dang 7y ago

Url changed from https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/26/apple-arm-hire-mac/ https://9to5mac.com/2019/06/26/apple-arm-hire-mac/, which points to this.

malshe 7y ago
Thanks

BooneJS 7y ago

Mike’s a really sharp guy.

sprafa 7y ago
You’ve worked/met him?
- scarcelycoher 7y ago
  you can see from the lumps in his head
- BooneJS 7y ago
  Back when he was at Intel, our companies did some co-development.

Jerry2 7y ago

TFA starts off with a piece of actual news and then veers off into rumors and unsubstantiated BS which is presented as facts. >Apple is in the process of migrating its Mac line to ARM processors as it looks to reduce its reliance on Intel.

HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago
That particular "fact" does have some substance to it- In the past, Apple has switched as they feel that CPU horsepower is holding them back (keep in mind that they really want people to buy new every year) and they have already started moving their lineups over to ARM- their iPads have been ARM forever, and they have a pretty big knowledge base in it now. EDIT: I think you may have been referring to the 9to5mac article- I'm going to leave this comment here, but the current article is way more specific.
- bshipp 7y ago
  correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the reason they moved to Intel chips in the first place because their homegrown CPUs couldn't keep up? Has that calculus changed in the meantime?
  - Doctor_Fegg 7y ago
    PowerPC wasn’t really homegrown.
    - gumby 7y ago
      Though Apple was part of the original PowerPC consortium, and back then also had a chip team. Then again Apple was also the other partner (with Acorn) in founding ARM.
  - esmi 7y ago
    They switched because Freescale and IBM couldn’t keep up with Intel. Apple did not make CPUs at that time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%27s_transition_to_Intel_processors https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%27s_transition_to_Inte...
    - bshipp 7y ago
      Fair enough, I always associated PowerPC with Apple and assumed they were the driving force behind it's use. Regardless, that makes the financial calculus even more suspect as they would have even fewer units to amortize the cost over. But I don't work for Apple, and quite frankly the CPU market could certain use the injection of some more competition.

malshe 7y ago

Outline link: https://outline.com/D3sK4b https://outline.com/D3sK4b

helloworm 7y ago

Apple already makes the best custom ARM chips.. why would they need a dude from ARM? I think this is news for the sake of news. It’s just head hunting

terandle 7y ago
In the article it is mentioned that Apple's previous head architect left earlier this year so they needed a new one.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
samfisher83 7y ago
They also have the most silicon to work with. If you are designing a chip with x resources vs y resources its kind of unfair to say one design is better than the other. One design is optimized for one thing vs another. Arm needs to sell to wide set of customers who might be more more price sensitive than apple. If I could create a chip with more decoders, alu units, cache, etc. I can design a faster chip, but it wouldn't necessarily mean I am a better designer than an engineer who works at company x.
- monocasa 7y ago
  It's sort of a little bit of both. Like for sure their raw gate count is a huge part, but if you go look at a bunch of their acquisitions (particularly looking at Intrinsity here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intrinsity ), they have a lot of really cool techniques for making their designs count even gate for gate. Intrinsity's work is neat, because they didn't really make any uarch changes or increase the gate count really, they just made their Cortex-A8 core way better which lets you judge the work in an apples to apples (lol) way that you normally don't get.

annoyingnoob 7y ago

Apple extends its ARM, gives Intel the finger.

deepnotderp 7y ago

It's not like Apple already has one of the world's best chip design teams...

jpeg_hero 7y ago

Is this really newsworthy? Sounds like an accomplished person, but is it really a key hire??

MR4D 7y ago
FTA: "At ARM, Filippo was a lead engineer behind chip designs... ...Filippo was also a key designer at chipmakers Advanced Micro Devices and Intel Corp." And his LinkedIn resume has much more detail - pretty impressive guy. https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-filippo-ba89b9/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-filippo-ba89b9/
- baybal2 7y ago
  Guy like Filippo, Keller, Koduri and such are pretty much like football players in the top leagues. Crazy signing bonuses, and clubs pay more for depriving an enemy team a key player, and assurance of him not playing against them, rather than for the genuine expectation of him performing for the team.

Razengan 7y ago

There are certainly many signs over the last few years that point to ARM Macs. I don't mind what CPU my Mac runs on, but I am worried about how long I'll be able to play older games, run the occasional Windows/Linux software, and dabble in OS hacking or low-level tinkering to add custom features, on the same machine. The seemingly gradual lockdown of macOS – mandatory "notarization", moving system files to a read-only volume, and disallowing kernel extensions in the future* – has generated some concern where before I used to just trust Apple to know what's best for everyone. I welcome the extra security as long as we can manually bypass it if we really want to, but I warily wonder if the move to ARM Macs will come with a macOS that is almost as locked-down or "sanitized" as iOS. * As mentioned during this WWDC's Platforms State of the Union.

bredren 7y ago
I have used multiple gens of the MacBook Air for web programming—often docked—most recently w the assist of an egpu. I am interested in battery efficiency, raw cpu and graphics performance and do not care to do low level tinkering on my Mac. I do expect it to be much more open to tinkering than iOS, but I also welcome the litany of security measures introduced so far and caution when it comes to executing wild code that affects my privacy. I realize this puts me further in with trusting Apple to make good compromise decisions on what is possible and the hoops they create for developers on Macos, but I trust they will mostly make the right call for me. It’s certainly been better than when I’ve had to deal with windows over the past decade.
- cheeze 7y ago
  > do not care to do low level tinkering on my Mac You may not, but many do. Those many may actually be a small minority, but it would really suck for those folks. At the end of the day, sometimes I need to run random x86/64 executables and there isn't any way around that. I could deal with a performant virtual machine.
  - gigatexal 7y ago
    Drivers are moving to userspace. What more low level access do you need other than that if you can write your own driver for things?

ngcc_hk 7y ago

Just hope they have an AI gpu gp programme. Otherwise a bit forced to move to windows and linux currently even for my personal pc. (Cloud ok but offline or testing still want one close by. Current apple no Nvidia.)

CalChris 7y ago

Apple sells at least 10 ARM chips for every Intel chip already. Should this hire seem at all surprising regardless of future plans?

xxs 7y ago
this is unlikely when it comes to datacenters, where the large business is.
- msh 7y ago
  That's not a large business for Apple.
  - rbanffy 7y ago
    And, considering competition is primarily on price, it makes no sense to be a business for Apple.
  - xxs 7y ago
    the response is to "Apple outsells Intel 10-to-1", where the vast majority of sells are non-end-user when it comes to Intel.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

dvdbloc 7y ago

I wonder how much that cost them...

blacksoil 7y ago

Considering the launch of Mac's App Store, the move to using LLVM IR-based distribution, and this, it sounds reasonable that they're trying to build an ARM-based MacBook! And considering the present state that OSX performs much better than Windows of the same hardware spec, it would be really a big game changer if Apple were to succeed in creating a performant ARM-based Macbook! Battery life of such Macbook would be super crazy and I guess more people would move over to Mac? I hope Linux and Microsoft do something before this happens...