Intel grabs Apple M1 Engineer

[ElmerJFudd]

https://9to5mac.com/2022/01/06/apple-engineering-director-m1-intel/

 

' Wilcox touts on his LinkedIn profile that he 'led the transition for all Macs to Apple Silicon,' including work on the M1 chip and the T2 security chip. Reflecting on his time at Apple last month, Wilcox wrote on LinkedIn:

 

It has been an incredible ride and I could not be prouder of all we accomplished during my time there, culminating in the Apple SIlicon transition with the M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max SOCs and systems. I will dearly miss all of my Apple colleagues and friends, but I am looking forward to the next journey which will start at the first of the year. More to come!

 

Wilcox now serves as an Intel Fellow and the lead of the company"s Design Engineering Group'

[KuruPrionz]

Difficult to draw conclusions as to how this will go, early in the game.

 

Intel has deep pockets, so does Apple. Apple will be holding the patents for Apple Silicon, Intel may pay Apple on a per chip basis or they will need to come up with something new and different. Both are possible.

 

It took Apple a few years to go from idea to actual product, that probably won't change too much unless Intel pays patent rights and even then it will take them some time.

As to what Apple is up to now, who knows?

[dongna]

Intel may pay Apple on a per chip basis...

 

When pigs fly...

[KuruPrionz]

Intel may pay Apple on a per chip basis...

 

When pigs fly...

 

 

Curious as to why you say that with such confidence?

 

My first sentence makes it clear that I'm not here to argue. Everything is speculation.

It's a given that Intel has done and will continue to do a deep dive on Apple patents and vice versa.

 

Jeff Wilcox signed agreements with both companies that limit his "skin in the game". I'm certain he is very well paid and rightly so.

Apparently it was in Apple's best interests to let Wilcox go, they have money if that's all it takes to keep somebody (and mostly, it is).

 

Your spin?

[Docbop]

Sound more like Intel just rocking the boat Apple for switching. Apple's M1 is SoC on a ARM platform. SoC has been around for awhile not some new Apple idea. So what Intel gets juggling NDA and probable non-competes in the guys Apple contract is better idea of Apple five and ten year tech plans. Even that Apple has said enough to know AI is their focus with autonomous cars first. They said they are working on very large physical and heatwise chips to have enough AI processing power for cars and robotics. Remember even Steve Jobs talked about Apple moving away from computers and focusing on smart devices.

 

So I think is more of media big deal than anything else. Especially the timing around CES time and all the chip makers rolling out new tech. From working in the industry what the media say about fights between companies is just the media trying to sell advertising. Companies in general get along and know more about what each other is doing than the public who only reads the media knows. Especially in the silicon world with it high R&D costs.

[RABid]

The real question is did they hire him for his knowledge which may or may not be tied up in pattens, or is he a get it done personality with good leadership abilities that can accellerate new development.

[dongna]

Your spin?

Sorry, didn't mean for that to sound confrontational... anything but.

 

Just meant that Intel is a chip company, with a very well-funded R & D department with highly qualified engineers. Even if the M1 might give Apple a current leg up in the computer processor arena (which is just one of many), I'm pretty certain Intel has lots of stuff in the pipeline and will continue to compete.

[Groove On]

https://9to5mac.com/2022/01/06/apple-engineering-director-m1-intel/] including work on the M1 chip and the T2 security chip.

It's quite obvious to me, after completing work on the T2 chip, that he's going to Intel to continue building Skynet.

[Ken Beaumont]

Competition is a good thing! I just bought an M1 Mac Mini 16GB with 512GB SSD and a dock with another 2TB. Really seeing a big increase in speed from my Dell especially editing raw 4k video files. The dell would crash hard and often in Da Vinci Resolve. No issues with the Mac. Only downside was I had to purchase a DAW. So far I bought studio one artist and have a 90 day trial of logic. Haven't decided which to go with yet. On the Dell I was using Cakewalk for free and was pretty happy with it. Almost all of my purchased plugins work just fine. Didn't lose anything important. All in all I'm happy how easy the transition was.

[GovernorSilver]

Intel may pay Apple on a per chip basis

 

I don't quite follow here. That is, the reasoning as to why Intel should be paying Apple anything.

[Docbop]

Intel may pay Apple on a per chip basis

 

I don't quite follow here. That is, the reasoning as to why Intel should be paying Apple anything.

 

 

I remember when the same thing happened to Apple after they kept suing MS for Windows saying MS stole it. Then Xerox finally woke up and said hey. Apple stole MacOS interface from us, which they had. Apple also stole the mouse concept from Xerox. But the courts told Xerox you waited too long to sue. Anyone that used the old Xerox Star system or programmed in Smalltalk will recognize what became MacOS. I worked at Digitalk the last of the Smalltalk companies and it was funny seeing the MacOS interface on Windows and OS/2 machines.

[KuruPrionz]

Your spin?

Sorry, didn't mean for that to sound confrontational... anything but.

 

Just meant that Intel is a chip company, with a very well-funded R & D department with highly qualified engineers. Even if the M1 might give Apple a current leg up in the computer processor arena (which is just one of many), I'm pretty certain Intel has lots of stuff in the pipeline and will continue to compete.

 

No doubt of that.

At the same time, while Apple was developing the Apple Silicon they found it financially expedient to purchase Intel chips to keep them in the game. That doesn't mean Intel will do the same thing, not by any means.

It also does not mean that they won't, business is business. Being a top chip maker does not make one immune to competition or business complications. In the end, business drives innovation and R&D, not the other way around, at least not in gigantic corporations.

 

And that's all I was trying to say. I don't have any skin in the game either way and I certainly don't have a track record of accurately predicting the future.

 

And Governor Silver, I didn't quote you but same answer. I don't know, just speculation. I've seen stranger things happen, we all have.

[GovernorSilver]

Intel may pay Apple on a per chip basis

 

I don't quite follow here. That is, the reasoning as to why Intel should be paying Apple anything.

 

 

I remember when the same thing happened to Apple after they kept suing MS for Windows saying MS stole it. Then Xerox finally woke up and said hey. Apple stole MacOS interface from us, which they had. Apple also stole the mouse concept from Xerox. But the courts told Xerox you waited too long to sue. Anyone that used the old Xerox Star system or programmed in Smalltalk will recognize what became MacOS. I worked at Digitalk the last of the Smalltalk companies and it was funny seeing the MacOS interface on Windows and OS/2 machines.

 

Ok, so the thought here - I don't want to say argument because it's not - is that Intel will somehow screw up and give an opening for Apple to sue them.

[ElmerJFudd]

From what I see, Gen 12 CPUs from Intel are quite impressive. But it definitely seems Intel sees a hole in their game plan - definitely in mobile. The market agrees - if that means anything. Meteor Lake - 7 Nano ARM processor is supposed to be out this year. I expect they"ll have an ARM processor with M1 like features for silicon vendors to use in their designs within a year. Shipping maybe 6 months after that.

[GovernorSilver]

At the same time, while Apple was developing the Apple Silicon they found it financially expedient to purchase Intel chips to keep them in the game.

 

Apple was using PowerPC chips, developed by the Apple-IBM-Motorola (AIM) alliance, aka PowerPC alliance, from the mid-1990s to around 2006, when Jobs announced the transition to Intel chips. From what I recall, some of the reasoning for this transition was indeed cost-cutting, as buying off the shelf Intel chips had become cheaper than developing chips in house. I also seem to recall some loss of patience or confidence on Jobs' part with the AIM alliance.

 

Thanks to huge profits off of iPhone sales, they can afford to switch back to in-house chip design and manufacturing.

[EVC]

, they can afford to switch back to in-house chip design and manufacturing.

 

AFAIK they do not manufacture the chips. Unlike Intel they use an external foundry, TSMC.

[Docbop]

Intel may pay Apple on a per chip basis

 

I don't quite follow here. That is, the reasoning as to why Intel should be paying Apple anything.

 

 

I remember when the same thing happened to Apple after they kept suing MS for Windows saying MS stole it. Then Xerox finally woke up and said hey. Apple stole MacOS interface from us, which they had. Apple also stole the mouse concept from Xerox. But the courts told Xerox you waited too long to sue. Anyone that used the old Xerox Star system or programmed in Smalltalk will recognize what became MacOS. I worked at Digitalk the last of the Smalltalk companies and it was funny seeing the MacOS interface on Windows and OS/2 machines.

 

Ok, so the thought here - I don't want to say argument because it's not - is that Intel will somehow screw up and give an opening for Apple to sue them.

 

I don't think Intel will screw up and give Apple an opening to sue, but Apple might decide to sue even if only to get media attention and to get the fanbois to light their torches. All these big companies suing each other is more about getting media coverage than real lawsuits now and then but most of it is game playing.

[GovernorSilver]

 

I don't think Intel will screw up and give Apple an opening to sue, but Apple might decide to sue even if only to get media attention and to get the fanbois to light their torches. All these big companies suing each other is more about getting media coverage than real lawsuits now and then but most of it is game playing.

 

I don't see the return on investment being worth such a move, but we do live in crazy times. I'd be more likely to believe they'd do it if Jobs were still alive.

[Lady Gaia]

Reporting on the subject almost certainly leads to the conclusion that he was far more central to the success of the product than he was. The M1 is largely derivative of the A-series designs that I haven't seen any indication of his involvement with. He's part of the Mac side of the house, formerly responsible for the T2 security chip, and doubtless focused on the integration of the CPU and GPU cores designed previously with aspects of the Mac system requirements. So it's not like he's the genius responsible for the power efficient design at the heart of the new Macs. Not that there was a singular person with that responsibility in any case. While I was not involved on a day-to-day basis with the iPhone SoC team, I did meet with their technical leadership every two weeks or so to focus on key aspects of the design and how they were going to meet their goals for several years. I don't believe I ever met or heard of Jeff Wilcox during that time.

 

As for Apple's use of TSMC as a foundry? Intel is doing likewise for some of their upcoming designs while they're trying to sort out their own fabrication process issues that are stumbling blocks for their ambitions in the GPU space.

[KuruPrionz]

Reporting on the subject almost certainly leads to the conclusion that he was far more central to the success of the product than he was. The M1 is largely derivative of the A-series designs that I haven't seen any indication of his involvement with. He's part of the Mac side of the house, formerly responsible for the T2 security chip, and doubtless focused on the integration of the CPU and GPU cores designed previously with aspects of the Mac system requirements. So it's not like he's the genius responsible for the power efficient design at the heart of the new Macs. Not that there was a singular person with that responsibility in any case. While I was not involved on a day-to-day basis with the iPhone SoC team, I did meet with their technical leadership every two weeks or so to focus on key aspects of the design and how they were going to meet their goals for several years. I don't believe I ever met or heard of Jeff Wilcox during that time.

 

As for Apple's use of TSMC as a foundry? Intel is doing likewise for some of their upcoming designs while they're trying to sort out their own fabrication process issues that are stumbling blocks for their ambitions in the GPU space.

 

Thanks for your viewpoint!

[o0Ampy0o]

I don't think Intel will screw up and give Apple an opening to sue, but Apple might decide to sue even if only to get media attention and to get the fanbois to light their torches. All these big companies suing each other is more about getting media coverage than real lawsuits now and then but most of it is game playing.

You can also get media attention by setting your offices on fire or shooting yourself in the foot, literally. The complications and restrictions involved while things are battled in court create new problems. In the end the details are too complicated and/or unimportant to the public. What matters is the freedom to pursue the technology and make something with it that people can utilize.

 

Remember even Steve Jobs talked about Apple moving away from computers and focusing on smart devices.

The "even" should not be there. Steve Jobs didn't just talk about it. He announced the new focus as it became reality in the present time of that moment. He then changed the name from Apple Computer to Apple Inc.. Apple today is still Steve Jobs's vision. There may be people running the company and/or keeping the company running in his absence but he has not been replaced.

 

'The Mac, iPod, Apple TV and iPhone. Only one of those is a computer. So we"re changing the name.' ~Steve Jobs

 

I would argue that an iPhone is a computer. They just refer to the iPhone as a phone because its main objective is phone communication. I would not be surprised if that statement was not well-considered and deliberate in its classification of the iPhone as NOT being a computer because they intended to present the iPhone as life changing revolutionary. Jobs envisioned how integral the Smartphone would be. They delivered a product which elevated the telephone to Science Fiction levels. To think of it as a computer would hold it back from credit due for being an exponentially advanced phone rather than a portable computer. Point being that the phone aspect is most important and everything else serves its objective. We now think of doing everything on our phones.

[Stokely]

And with younger generations, even more so. I think the only "phone calls" my youngest gets on his iphone are from me or his mom. Even texting, that newfangled horror for older folks, is old news for them. They mostly use their phones to either play games or watch videos, and occasionally to do official things like sign up for stuff. I work at a University and all of our custom applications have been converted to be available via mobile devices.

 

Heck I use an ipad to play b-3 organ live and would use a phone if the app ran on a phone! I told a sub bass player about it at one gig when he mentioned he liked the organ, real old-school guy, he looked at me like I had two heads or had spoken in Klingon.

 

As far as Apple--my wife just got the new M1 macbook pro for use with her business, she had an old imac and needed something portable. I'm very impressed with the build quality compared to my razor thin 2016 MBP--the new one has some heft and "beef" to it like a pro machine should. The keys are much better, still not back to 2012 quality IMO but good enough. The humongous trackpad still is a bit of a worry as my big hands tend to bump it, throwing the mouse cursor who knows where. I do dislike Apple's apparent recent trend of pumping out new OSes as fast as possible, and with bugs (Monterey has caused a lot of people some issues). Some of this may be due to M1 support but I wish that when a new "x.0" came out you'd have confidence to use it...I would wait for "x.1" these days if possible.

 

Anyway, the M1 seems like a huge success, and if it causes the intels and others to scramble and emulate, that seems like a good thing. I use windows 10 for work and that laptop (HP elitebook) is a very nice one to use. I've never tried music on it though.

[analogika]

It took Apple a few years to go from idea to actual product, that probably won't change too much unless Intel pays patent rights and even then it will take them some time.

 

I'm confused by some of the comments here.

 

Apple purchased chip designer company P.A. Semi in 2008 and immediately assigned the team to develop in-house chips using the ARM architecture to replace the off-the-shelf ARM chips they had been using in iPods/iPhones.

 

Their first own design, based on ARM tech, powered the iPhone 5S in 2013 and has been the heart of every iPhone and iPad since. Around 2020, Apple's own designs overtook Intel's offerings to the point where it made sense to build actual conventional computers around them.

 

Their designs are way ahead of the competition in terms of efficiency, and in large part so, because they are their own entire customer base for the chips â they design and build to their own specifications, and the software is as optimised to utilise the hell out of the processors as vice-versa.

 

Intel does not have this luxury, by any stretch â they are forced, always, to build for the lowest common denominator of the markets they aim at.

 

One huge part of what makes the Apple designs so efficient is the System-on-a-Chip design, that integrates all the relevant different components into a single wafer. This is super-complex to design and manufacture, but it dramatically increases speed and efficiency by reducing distance between individual components, allowing for the shared memory architecture, the massive bus speeds, etc.

 

Intel has nothing to compare â they package a bunch of components into a box they call "system in a package", but that's more an admission that they're unable to produce SoC designs at scale, if I understand correctly.

 

I assume that this is the primary interest Intel has in Wilcox.

[analogika]

From what I see, Gen 12 CPUs from Intel are quite impressive. But it definitely seems Intel sees a hole in their game plan - definitely in mobile. The market agrees - if that means anything. Meteor Lake - 7 Nano ARM processor is supposed to be out this year. I expect they"ll have an ARM processor with M1 like features for silicon vendors to use in their designs within a year. Shipping maybe 6 months after that.

Nothing about Meteor Lake is ARM-based, AFAIK.

 

ARM is a completely different tech, and Intel switching to it would mean that ALL software and ALL operating systems that run on Intel would instantly become incompatible with Intel chips. The reason Apple could do this is because they own the software and built a massively successful compatibility layer into their OS.

 

Intel sold their ARM business years ago. If they were to build ARM processors now, they'd have to re-acquire the business or start over from scratch â either way, it would take many years to fruition.

[pjd]

Hi --

 

I'm a retired AMD'er and know a lot of senior staff that have jumped ship from one employer to another -- every which way! I could write a book here...

 

First, it takes a small army to design a next generation chip. Shucks, it takes a small army to crank out the next iteration of a part and get it working.

 

Senior staff -- fellows are the tech equivalent of a management ladder VP -- don't even have that much effect on architecture or micro-architecture. They can influence where a company goes next in a market, help manage the armies, and other strategic level stuff. Given corporate politics, technical/business influence is limited.

 

ARM, Intel, AMD and others have been designing superscalar pipelined processors for literally decades now. There aren't any magic architectural bullets at this point as far as micro-architecture is concerned. It's a game of incremental improvements.

 

At a macro level, Apple, nVidia and AMD have gotten performance advantages from domain-specific hardware like GP GPU, AI-focused processors, etc. This is not secret sauce and it still takes a small army to deliver working parts.

 

Intel has people smart enough do an SoC. So does AMD, nVidia, etc. Never underestimate a competitor. Does Intel wish they still had Apple? Sure. Same way companies wish they have Nintendo, Sony, other big accounts. It's dog-eat-dog.

 

I'm not very impressed when I read about so-and-so jumping to another company. The tech web sites have to have something to write about. :-) Good luck to those climbing the ladder!

 

I wish everyone well. It's a difficult, stressful game. Glad I'm retired. :-)

 

All the best -- pj

 

Music technology blog: sandsoftwaresound.net

[pjd]

As to patents, I wouldn't be surprised if Intel and Apple had a cross-licensing agreement (possibly confidential, terms and existence of the agreement not public). Individual patents cover some pretty arcane stuff. Nobody has the time or money for patent wars. It's bad for day-to-day business. That's why it is a truly big deal when there is a patent suit. Usually there is some other, not-so-visible business issue on the table, too.

 

Actually, Intel does have its own compiler. At least Apple forced Intel to pay some attention to LLVM. The old Intel compilers would check CPUID. Depending on the result, it would run along optimized Intel code paths or run along brain-damaged non-Intel paths. Wonder if they're still playing that game?

 

-- pj

[KuruPrionz]

It took Apple a few years to go from idea to actual product, that probably won't change too much unless Intel pays patent rights and even then it will take them some time.

 

I'm confused by some of the comments here.

 

Apple purchased chip designer company P.A. Semi in 2008 and immediately assigned the team to develop in-house chips using the ARM architecture to replace the off-the-shelf ARM chips they had been using in iPods/iPhones.

 

Their first own design, based on ARM tech, powered the iPhone 5S in 2013 and has been the heart of every iPhone and iPad since. Around 2020, Apple's own designs overtook Intel's offerings to the point where it made sense to build actual conventional computers around them.

 

Their designs are way ahead of the competition in terms of efficiency, and in large part so, because they are their own entire customer base for the chips â they design and build to their own specifications, and the software is as optimised to utilise the hell out of the processors as vice-versa.

 

Intel does not have this luxury, by any stretch â they are forced, always, to build for the lowest common denominator of the markets they aim at.

 

One huge part of what makes the Apple designs so efficient is the System-on-a-Chip design, that integrates all the relevant different components into a single wafer. This is super-complex to design and manufacture, but it dramatically increases speed and efficiency by reducing distance between individual components, allowing for the shared memory architecture, the massive bus speeds, etc.

 

Intel has nothing to compare â they package a bunch of components into a box they call "system in a package", but that's more an admission that they're unable to produce SoC designs at scale, if I understand correctly.

 

I assume that this is the primary interest Intel has in Wilcox.

 

No worries, it's standard operating procedure in "Forum Thread World" to pick one sentence out of context and question the provenance.

If one quietly observes, there may not be enough information provided to learn new things and understand topics that are beyond one's usual realm of knowledge.

 

I do intentionally make seemingly controversial statements for others with more knowledge of the topic to correct, in my experience it is one of the most efficient ways to obtain other people's viewpoints.

There are LOTS of good folks on here who know umpty-bajillion regarding topics of all sorts, I learn from them but only if they speak out.

Yes, it's a trick and an amazingly simple one.

 

Below, I've compiled some of my other statements from this thread. Nobody quotes those, then they come at me like I am seriously not understanding reality. I've never said that I did!!!!

Thanks for your input, all of us can learn from feedback if we can find a way to get it.

 

"Difficult to draw conclusions as to how this will go, early in the game.

 

As to what Apple is up to now, who knows?

 

My first sentence makes it clear that I'm not here to argue. Everything is speculation.

 

At the same time, while Apple was developing the Apple Silicon they found it financially expedient to purchase Intel chips to keep them in the game. That doesn't mean Intel will do the same thing, not by any means.

It also does not mean that they won't, business is business. Being a top chip maker does not make one immune to competition or business complications. In the end, business drives innovation and R&D, not the other way around, at least not in gigantic corporations.

 

And that's all I was trying to say. I don't have any skin in the game either way and I certainly don't have a track record of accurately predicting the future."

/quote]

[Anderton]

ARM Holdings does licensing. My understanding is that Apple was frustrated with Intel's progress and saw an entry from their experience in the mobile space. No one person is indispensable, especially when there are multiple companies and engineering teams involved. I don't see a lot of patent potential other than form and function, I think there's probably a lot of prior art for the technology itself.

 

In the immortal words of Herman Cain, "I don't have facts to back this up" but given that Microsoft is going in with Intel on their next-gen SoC, and that someone like a Jeff Wilcox is always looking for "the next thing," my take is that Microsoft has already (wisely) ceded the mobile phone market to Apple and Samsung. However Microsoft's Azure cloud services are posing serious, and growing, competition to Amazon's equivalent. I can see Microsoft and Intel trying to carve out some kind of unique space, and let Apple take over the mobile/efficient consumer/semipro market. As to what that unique space might be, I have no idea but perhaps it's creating hardware designed specifically to tie in with cloud services - very little storage, lots of security, next-level networking, and with access to top-level applications included as part of the deal.

 

One of Apple's advantages over a PC manufacturer is that the applications that come with macOS are way better than the ones that come with Windows, with the possible exception of Edge and Teams. So if you could pay very little for basically a smart terminal with perceived performance equal to a typical laptop, and run sophisticated cloud programs, it could be a direct attack not so much on Apple but on the whole Chromebook idea.

 

For education, even a MacBook Air is too expensive, which is probably why Chromebooks sold a ton during the height of the pandemic. Maybe Intel wants to take over spaces where Apple won't compete due to different corporate priorities. If I was pitching a bulk computer buy to the Shanghai school system (10,000 schools, IIRC), something like a souped-up yet inexpensive Chromebook-meets-tablet, tied in with cloud services over which there could be substantial control (for good or evil purposes, take your pick), would probably be an easier sell than MacBooks or inexpensive Windows laptops.

 

All just a guess, of course.