“Arhitectul” chip-urilor A4 si A5 paraseste Apple

  Jim Keller, omul care a dezvoltat in cadrul Apple chip-urile A4/A5/A5X care se regasesc in iPad, iPhone 4, iPad 2, iPhone 4S si iPad 3, a parasit compania pentru a se angaja la AMD. Acolo el va lucra sub comanda lui Mark Papermaster, un fost inginer Apple care a fost concediat de catre companie dupa declansarea scandalului Antennagate care avea in prim-plan problema terminalului iPhone 4 care pierde semnal daca partea stanga jos este acoperita. Pentru Apple pierderea s-ar putea dovedi a fi importanta in viitor deoarece in iPhone 5 va fi sigur implementat un chip dezvoltat de Keller, dar in iPad 4 procesul de dezvoltare continua.

Keller was most recently a director in the platform architecture group at Apple focusing on mobile products, where he architected several generations of mobile processors, including the chip families found in millions of Apple iPads, iPhones, iPods and Apple TVs. Prior to Apple, Keller was vice president of design for P.A. Semi, a fabless semiconductor design firm specializing in low-power mobile processors that was acquired by Apple in 2008. While there, he led the team responsible for building a powerful networking System on a Chip (SoC) and its integrated PowerPC processor. Keller previously worked at SiByte(R) and Broadcom as chief architect for a line of scalable, MIPS-based network processors that supported 1Gig networking interfaces, PCI and other control functions. Before Broadcom, he spent several years at AMD, playing an instrumental role on the design team responsible for the groundbreaking AMD Athlon(TM) 64 and AMD Opteron(TM) 64 processors, which featured the world’s first native x86-64 bit architecture.

  Chip-urile din seria A dezvoltate de catre Apple intre in performante altele din aceeasi categorie si sunt extrem de apropiate in performante, in lumea reala, de quad-urile implementate in smartphone-urile si tabletele Android. Apple a reusit sa dezvolte hardware foarte potent pentru terminalele sale, Keller a fost un om cheie in angrenajul companiei, insa acum altii ii vor lua locul si sper ca ei sa faca o treaba cel putin la fel de buna.