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AMD acquires ATI for $5.4 billion
AMD, the #2 CPU maker in the world, has announced a purchase of ATI, a leading graphics card manufacturer, for $5.4 billion. IMG has more details on the buyout and the business end of things, but we're more interested in finding out what exactly this means for the Mac market. ATI currently supplies the graphics hardware in a good portion of Apple's machines, including the MacBook Pro I'm typing this on and my wife's iMac, so here's hoping ATI makes enough money from working with Apple to keep AMD - an arch rival to Intel - happy. Stay tuned for more details as they develop.
Intel selling mobile chip unit to Marvell
The rumors of Intel searching for a buyer were circulating, and it looks like they were true: Intel is selling off their mobile chip arm -- responsible for the quite successful XScale group of processors -- to Marvell Technology Group for $600 million. With chips making notable appearances in Treo, Blackberry and HTC devices, and pulling in a reported $250 million in revenue last year, we're still scratching our heads as to why exactly Intel would want to get rid of such a successful portion of their business. We'd think powering smartphones would be a priority for Intel right now, but the word is that Intel will have an option to receive $100 million of the purchase price in Marvell stock, so they might not be out of the game entirely. The chip unit currently employs 1,400 people, and Marvell plans to retain the "vast majority" of them, so this move shouldn't be too traumatic for most parties involved. We just hope they keep up with the R&D to get us smaller, faster, cooler and cheaper chips on the regular.
Dell-AMD partnership is supposedly official
Ever since Dell began relaxing its anti-AMD policy by incorporating Opteron processors in its server line and selling Athlon chips through its online store -- not to mention that little Alienware purchase -- there have been rumors that consumer desktops and laptops would also be outfitted with non-Intel CPUs for the first time, and now The Inquirer is reporting that a final agreement has been reached that will bring these very products to life. At a meeting which apparently took place at Michael Dell's Texas residence, the two camps reportedly concluded their courtship and began planning a series of AMD-powered machines --to be advertised as "Windows Vista Premium Ready" -- that will be available in time for the Back-to-School sales events. nVidia is said to be the manufacturer of choice for the upcoming Athlon boxes, while ATI will continue supplying graphics solutions for Intel-powered configurations and some AMD notebooks. One theory behind the deal says that even though Intel is in the midst of introducing a new architecture, most of the first-run Merom (mobile Core 2 Duo) chips have already been committed to Apple and Lenovo, so Dell needed a way to ensure that consumers wouldn't be kept waiting endlessly for back-ordered products. We're not sure about any of that, but we do know that we like having as many choices as possible when it comes to PCs, so we're sure hoping that The Inq's source is on the money here.
Devil in the details for 360 modchip
Devil360 may have generated enough hits to crash their site after bragging about a working 360 modchip (Supposedly unrelated to the known DVD firmware exploit), but they haven't generated much faith in the modder community. Most eager chipsters are taking a "show it or shut up" approach to the Devil's claims of hacking glory:The Devil360 will be a modchip for the Xbox 360 console, the 'small' security hole has been found! This device is in no way related to the DVD firmware exploits - it's a totally different approach. However we did not manage to get the product ready for today (6/6/6), because we are working hard on improving it to:* Try to protect it from any type of update* Make it programmable via PC* Boot unsigned code* Allow to swap HD with larger drive with a special interface between the 360 and the HD (all types IDE/SATA).After the ICE modchip fraud, nobody is going to believe this blather without concrete proof. The cutesy Devil-6/6/6 correlation doesn't help. Still, the prospect of unsigned code (Read XBMC360) is enough to make your inner geek self-delude for a moment, no matter how low your tolerance is for shady mod squads.
Samsung to supply chips for next-gen iPods
Well, the other shoe has dropped. A week after PortalPlayer revealed the crushing news that the company wouldn't be providing chips for the next version of the iPod nano, Samsung has announced that it has won the business from Apple. Jon Kang, a Samsung exec, gloated that “I knew PortalPlayer would take a dive," adding, modestly, “I knew that we would win this design." According to Samsung -- which already provides flash memory for the nano -- the deal represents the company's largest LSI chip deal so far. “It’s a huge win for us," said Kang. Meanwhile, Apple has yet to comment on plans for the next-gen nanos, which are expected to offer increased capacity, and may be less prone to at-home engraving than current models.
Is Apple first in line this January for the Yonnah?
Engadget picked up on a post from ThinkSecret claiming that Apple could announce portables at Macworld '06 that just might be the some of the first available on the market to have Intel's new Yonah chips inside. Getting this close to Macworld there's no shortage of buzz and rumors flying around about which move Apple's going to take in light of this Intel switch. But ever since I blogged Intel's announcement of the new chips over on DownloadSquad last August, I was willing to put money down (if I had money, that is) that Apple wasn't switching for the Pentium 4 (how old is that chip now?) or even the M or Centrino chips. Apple's after what Intel has cooking in the pot, and I'm willing to throw down (Monopoly) money that Macworld is where they'll whip out those new Intel chips, especially since Macworld Boston is no more. Things also look positive for a Yonah iBook/PowerBook since Engadget also notes that NEC has officially announced a Yonah portable, sans shipping date, however.So could Apple (ironically) beat other PC manufacturers to the punch with brand new chips from Intel, come Macworld '06? To me, that sounds like a play straight out of Jobs' book.
