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Now that most of Apple's top talents from its CPU division have left for greener pastures (1), I guess this is their new strategy - somehow delay their competit

Now that most of Apple's top talents from its CPU division have left for greener pastures (1), I guess this is their new strategy - somehow delay their competitors from launching new and better chips while Apple scrambles to find new talents in the limited pool available. Apple has bet their future on Apple Silicon, and it badly needs to retain a lead on other competing CPU for a year or two, to capture sufficient market share (the perception of Apple Silicon leading over other CPUs is very important for this). TSMC also seems to be taking a big gamble, pissing of existing good clients. Edit: (1) https://semianalysis.com/apple-cpu-gains-grind-to-a-halt-and-the-future-looks-dim-as-the-cpu-engineer-exodus-to-nuvia-and-rivos-impact-starts-to-bleed-in/ https://semianalysis.com/apple-cpu-gains-grind-to-a-halt-and...

afandian 5y ago
Got a link for that?
- webmobdev 5y ago
  > ... In 2019, Nuvia was founded and later acquired by Qualcomm for $1.4B. Apple’s Chief CPU Architect, Gerard Williams, as well as over a 100 other Apple engineers left to join this firm. More recently, SemiAnalysis broke the news about Rivos Inc, a new high performance RISC V startup which includes many senior Apple engineers. The brain drain continues and impacts will be more apparent as time moves on. As Apple once drained resources out of Intel and others through the industry, the reverse seems to be happening now. > We believe Apple had to delay the next generation CPU core due to all the personnel turnover Apple has been experiencing ... https://semianalysis.com/apple-cpu-gains-grind-to-a-halt-and-the-future-looks-dim-as-the-cpu-engineer-exodus-to-nuvia-and-rivos-impact-starts-to-bleed-in/ https://semianalysis.com/apple-cpu-gains-grind-to-a-halt-and...
  - ericmay 5y ago
    Interesting they’re talking about the A15, since then the M1 chips have come out and they seem pretty good…
    - bdhess 5y ago
      The A15 was released in September with the 2021 iPhone; the M1 was released in November 2020.
    - nvrspyx 5y ago
      A15 was released with the iPhone 13 series this year, after the M1.
    - YetAnotherNick 5y ago
      M1 isn't a generational leap for Apple. It is just 7% faster for single core than last year's iphone 12. Apple was already so far ahead of the competitors in the chip department for multiple years. https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks
    - Ciantic 5y ago
      Gerard Williams claims credit for M1 Pro and M1 PRO Max as well: > Chief Architect for all Apple CPU and SOC development. For CPU, lead the Cyclone, Typhoon, Twister, Hurricane, Monsoon, Vortex, Lightning and Firestorm architecture work. Chief Architect for Apple MAC hardware platform M1 Pro and M1 Max. I guess they were in the works long before he left. https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerard-williams-iii-27895aa https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerard-williams-iii-27895aa
    - formerly_proven 5y ago
      Microarchitectures are not developed within a year.
  - jeromegv 5y ago
    While this shows that talent has left, I don't think that the quote about "most of Apple's top talent has left" is quite well explained by this article. Your comment make it seem like there's hardly anyone left and all they can do now is delay the competition with exclusive contracts... which is quite a leap.
    - webmobdev 5y ago
      I drew the conclusion that the top "innovators" had left. Without them, can Apple Silicon really keep improving?
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
mrweasel 5y ago
Aren’t you making the assumption that Apple haven’t developed new in-house talent over the last few years?
- webmobdev 5y ago
  Yes, I am - there's only so many good hardware engineers in this field who can innovate. And now that there's a lot of demand and competition for them, it's concerning if Apple is unable to retain them.
defaultname 5y ago
We've been hearing this "they've lost all their CPU talents" claim for literal years, during a period when Apple keeps having win after win. At what point will it start to ring a little hollow? "somehow delay their competitors from launching new and better chips" Both AMD and nvidia have designed and built on older processes long after newer process capacity was available to them. They aren't being delayed at all. Apple committing to production capacity is neither "Apple first", nor is it Apple "delaying" competitors. There is finite production capacity, and customers spread across the available options. There is literally nothing notable or interesting in that. But once you add words like "Mutiny", you pander to a very gullible crowd.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  It takes around 5-6 years for a CPU architecture to go from first conception to production. Even if Apple's talents all left you wouldn't see the receipts for that until 5-7 years. NVidia and AMD do not have access to the latest processes. There is not enough capacity left at TSMC because of the Apple orders getting priority, so they have to stay on older processes. NVidia Ampere was not designed for Samsung 8nm, it was designed for TSMC 7nm but they couldn't get by with the leftovers so they had to put the consumer line on Samsung 8nm. Apple is absolutely first. They are using their warchest to ensure their competitors do not have access to high quality processes.
  - defaultname 5y ago
    "There is not enough capacity left at TSMC because of the Apple orders getting priority" Reality: Apple had designs ready and committed to production. Indeed, the first 5nm production was Apple chips, and HiSilicon. Yes, HiSilicon with stock ARM cores somehow managed what AMD and nvidia (who are barely even Apple "competitors") couldn't. "They are using their warchest to ensure their competitors do not have access to high quality processes." Again, nvidia and AMD both tend to hang two processes behind (making their chips cheaper, higher yield, and because they have a slow design iteration for new processes), but let's pretend that they were really trying for the newest process (you know, the one that HiSilicon managed to get). Apple's evil here is apparently simply making products. Because you know that Apple isn't just reserving unused capacity -- they are literally making A15s and M1s and soon 5G models in the hundreds of millions. It's pretty amazing that simply making your products is now nefariously blocking competitors (if you're ignorant enough of actual fact to think that was actually happening).
tpush 5y ago
> Now that most of Apple's top talents from its CPU division have left for greener pastures, [...] ?? > [...] somehow delay their competitors from launching new and better chips while Apple scrambles to find new talents in the limited pool available. Nonsense, Apple buying capacity because they actually need to manufacture that much stuff. Anything else would be completely idiotic. > Apple has bet their future on Apple Silicon, and it badly needs to retain a lead on other competing CPU for a year or two, to capture sufficient market share (the perception of Apple Silicon leading over other CPUs is very important for this). Share of what market are they supposedly wanting to capture? Share of PCs in general? They care about share of premium devices, where they are very well represented. Share of Macs themselves? That'll solve itself, since Apple won't be offering non-Apple Silicon Macs at some close point in the future. > TSMC also seems to be taking a big gamble, pissing of existing good clients. They take the offer with the most money attached, no one's (neither AMD nor Qualcom) surprised by that.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  Apple doesn't need to manufacture their stuff at TSMCs latest protest, neither do AMD or Qualcomm or NVidia. Taking the offer with the most money attached is not a good idea in the long term. They're currently providing unprecedented leverage to Apple. Apple Silicon needs the performance crown as the comment you're replying to mentioned. Having a good market share in the premium sphere is not good enough - if instead of trading blows but still ending up ahead of AMD, AMD processors also were on 5nm with DDR5 memory they'd be plainly slower. Then Apple would be in the position where their laptops are slower and have worse battery life than the competition and also Docker doesn't work right for developers and some of your VSTs don't work at all, and few people would take the pain of changing architecture for worse performance.
  - kergonath 5y ago
    I find quite interesting how you frame Apple designing good SoCs as a nefarious plot to take over the world and somehow kill companies they’re not competing with. That’s some impressive mental gymnastics.

afandian 5y ago

Got a link for that?

webmobdev 5y ago
> ... In 2019, Nuvia was founded and later acquired by Qualcomm for $1.4B. Apple’s Chief CPU Architect, Gerard Williams, as well as over a 100 other Apple engineers left to join this firm. More recently, SemiAnalysis broke the news about Rivos Inc, a new high performance RISC V startup which includes many senior Apple engineers. The brain drain continues and impacts will be more apparent as time moves on. As Apple once drained resources out of Intel and others through the industry, the reverse seems to be happening now. > We believe Apple had to delay the next generation CPU core due to all the personnel turnover Apple has been experiencing ... https://semianalysis.com/apple-cpu-gains-grind-to-a-halt-and-the-future-looks-dim-as-the-cpu-engineer-exodus-to-nuvia-and-rivos-impact-starts-to-bleed-in/ https://semianalysis.com/apple-cpu-gains-grind-to-a-halt-and...
- ericmay 5y ago
  Interesting they’re talking about the A15, since then the M1 chips have come out and they seem pretty good…
  - bdhess 5y ago
    The A15 was released in September with the 2021 iPhone; the M1 was released in November 2020.
  - nvrspyx 5y ago
    A15 was released with the iPhone 13 series this year, after the M1.
  - YetAnotherNick 5y ago
    M1 isn't a generational leap for Apple. It is just 7% faster for single core than last year's iphone 12. Apple was already so far ahead of the competitors in the chip department for multiple years. https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks https://browser.geekbench.com/ios-benchmarks
  - Ciantic 5y ago
    Gerard Williams claims credit for M1 Pro and M1 PRO Max as well: > Chief Architect for all Apple CPU and SOC development. For CPU, lead the Cyclone, Typhoon, Twister, Hurricane, Monsoon, Vortex, Lightning and Firestorm architecture work. Chief Architect for Apple MAC hardware platform M1 Pro and M1 Max. I guess they were in the works long before he left. https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerard-williams-iii-27895aa https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerard-williams-iii-27895aa
  - formerly_proven 5y ago
    Microarchitectures are not developed within a year.
- jeromegv 5y ago
  While this shows that talent has left, I don't think that the quote about "most of Apple's top talent has left" is quite well explained by this article. Your comment make it seem like there's hardly anyone left and all they can do now is delay the competition with exclusive contracts... which is quite a leap.
  - webmobdev 5y ago
    I drew the conclusion that the top "innovators" had left. Without them, can Apple Silicon really keep improving?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]

mrweasel 5y ago

Aren’t you making the assumption that Apple haven’t developed new in-house talent over the last few years?

webmobdev 5y ago
Yes, I am - there's only so many good hardware engineers in this field who can innovate. And now that there's a lot of demand and competition for them, it's concerning if Apple is unable to retain them.

defaultname 5y ago

We've been hearing this "they've lost all their CPU talents" claim for literal years, during a period when Apple keeps having win after win. At what point will it start to ring a little hollow? "somehow delay their competitors from launching new and better chips" Both AMD and nvidia have designed and built on older processes long after newer process capacity was available to them. They aren't being delayed at all. Apple committing to production capacity is neither "Apple first", nor is it Apple "delaying" competitors. There is finite production capacity, and customers spread across the available options. There is literally nothing notable or interesting in that. But once you add words like "Mutiny", you pander to a very gullible crowd.

sudosysgen 5y ago
It takes around 5-6 years for a CPU architecture to go from first conception to production. Even if Apple's talents all left you wouldn't see the receipts for that until 5-7 years. NVidia and AMD do not have access to the latest processes. There is not enough capacity left at TSMC because of the Apple orders getting priority, so they have to stay on older processes. NVidia Ampere was not designed for Samsung 8nm, it was designed for TSMC 7nm but they couldn't get by with the leftovers so they had to put the consumer line on Samsung 8nm. Apple is absolutely first. They are using their warchest to ensure their competitors do not have access to high quality processes.
- defaultname 5y ago
  "There is not enough capacity left at TSMC because of the Apple orders getting priority" Reality: Apple had designs ready and committed to production. Indeed, the first 5nm production was Apple chips, and HiSilicon. Yes, HiSilicon with stock ARM cores somehow managed what AMD and nvidia (who are barely even Apple "competitors") couldn't. "They are using their warchest to ensure their competitors do not have access to high quality processes." Again, nvidia and AMD both tend to hang two processes behind (making their chips cheaper, higher yield, and because they have a slow design iteration for new processes), but let's pretend that they were really trying for the newest process (you know, the one that HiSilicon managed to get). Apple's evil here is apparently simply making products. Because you know that Apple isn't just reserving unused capacity -- they are literally making A15s and M1s and soon 5G models in the hundreds of millions. It's pretty amazing that simply making your products is now nefariously blocking competitors (if you're ignorant enough of actual fact to think that was actually happening).

tpush 5y ago

> Now that most of Apple's top talents from its CPU division have left for greener pastures, [...] ?? > [...] somehow delay their competitors from launching new and better chips while Apple scrambles to find new talents in the limited pool available. Nonsense, Apple buying capacity because they actually need to manufacture that much stuff. Anything else would be completely idiotic. > Apple has bet their future on Apple Silicon, and it badly needs to retain a lead on other competing CPU for a year or two, to capture sufficient market share (the perception of Apple Silicon leading over other CPUs is very important for this). Share of what market are they supposedly wanting to capture? Share of PCs in general? They care about share of premium devices, where they are very well represented. Share of Macs themselves? That'll solve itself, since Apple won't be offering non-Apple Silicon Macs at some close point in the future. > TSMC also seems to be taking a big gamble, pissing of existing good clients. They take the offer with the most money attached, no one's (neither AMD nor Qualcom) surprised by that.

sudosysgen 5y ago
Apple doesn't need to manufacture their stuff at TSMCs latest protest, neither do AMD or Qualcomm or NVidia. Taking the offer with the most money attached is not a good idea in the long term. They're currently providing unprecedented leverage to Apple. Apple Silicon needs the performance crown as the comment you're replying to mentioned. Having a good market share in the premium sphere is not good enough - if instead of trading blows but still ending up ahead of AMD, AMD processors also were on 5nm with DDR5 memory they'd be plainly slower. Then Apple would be in the position where their laptops are slower and have worse battery life than the competition and also Docker doesn't work right for developers and some of your VSTs don't work at all, and few people would take the pain of changing architecture for worse performance.
- kergonath 5y ago
  I find quite interesting how you frame Apple designing good SoCs as a nefarious plot to take over the world and somehow kill companies they’re not competing with. That’s some impressive mental gymnastics.