Katie MarsalToshiba may be overwhelmed by Apple memory orders
Mixed messages from Toshiba may be a clue to a major order of NAND flash memory from Apple, if claimed sources at circuit makers are accurate.
The apparent insiders for DigiTimes say Toshiba is boosting its production to a high 90 percent of its capacity next month but, strangely, is telling customers in the spot market — companies that buy on short notice — that it won't have much supply for their orders. The combination is usually a sign that a long-term client is swallowing up most of the components and leaving little else for the smaller companies that can't always make these deals.
It's speculated that the mystery drain on flash memory is none other than Apple, which has a history of creating shortages in the flash memory market whenever it's gearing up for the release of a new iPhone or iPod. The American firm also recently confirmed a $500 million contract with Toshiba that will guarantee a healthy supply of NAND flash for an unspecified amount of time, making it the most probable source of the problem.
Like most home electronics companies, Apple normally queues up production weeks or months ahead of when it actually intends to ship its products and is more than likely bracing itself for holiday sales of new mobile devices that could include iPods with cameras.
Samsung details 1GHz ARM processor
On Tuesday, Samsung escalated the race to faster mobile processors with word of its first ARM-based processor design to be built on a 45 nanometer assembly process.
So far known only as Hummingbird, it would use the smaller, cooler running architecture to increase the maximum clock speed of future system-on-chip processors to 1GHz, or significantly above Samsung's current 833MHz peak, without consuming more energy or wasting more heat. It would use the same Cortex-A8 platform found in the iPhone 3GS and would be Samsung's fastest ARM processor as a result.
Whether or not it will ever reach an Apple mobile device is up in the air, however. While every iPhone and iPod touch to date has used a Samsung-designed chip, Apple has signaled its intent to use custom-designed processors from recent acquisition P.A. Semi sometime in the future, avoiding any dependency on Samsung's plans for improving its own mobile hardware.
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At least non of this shortage has anything to do with the iTablet phantom.
Survival of the fittest, or most popular. Apple is doing what they should be doing here, insuring a ready flow of parts at lower prices.
A 1GHz processor sounds interesting. If this tablet thing is real, it will need something more powerful than the one in the iPhone. It might also need something more powerful than the Atom 1.67 GHz chip.
I have to say that the Toshiba mini NB205 netbook my daughter is using this summer is slow. Even with the upgrade to 2 GB RAM, it's slow.
I can't imagine a tablet from Apple being this slow. But the Atom is supposed to be more powerful than the fastest ARM.
How will this work? A large device could have a pretty big battery, so maybe two chips and the more powerful graphics chip? That would do it.
How about a 9.7" OLED? Sigh! That would be nice, but the rumors of screen sales to Apple hasn't mentioned that possibility.
At least non of this shortage has anything to do with the iTablet phantom.
Maybe, maybe not.
I presume the Samsung SoC is a die-shrink of their current offering. Could be that Apple will switch silently to this without changing operating parameters. Maybe Jan'10 iPhone 3GS' will get an extra hour of battery.
But yes, Samsung's actual performance with their ARM SoCs does make Apple's PA Semi purchase seem worthless, so PA Semi must be designing other chips for Apple beyond what Apple would have otherwise got from Samsung.
I have to say that the Toshiba mini NB205 netbook my daughter is using this summer is slow. Even with the upgrade to 2 GB RAM, it's slow.
Yeah, well Intel's current netbook offering is a CPU + dumb chipset, in effect.
ARM is more about dedicated hardware for functionality, so it had video decode, hardware encryption and so on. The CPU might be slower overall (but they're so small that you can have several of them) but the overall effect is good.
You'll notice if YouTube playback skips, but can cope with something taking a little longer to occur on a once-off basis. The ARM platform solves the common case with dedicated hardware, whilst using 1/10th of the power overall.
Look at Intel's Larrabee - they've had to add two hardware video decoders to the design because it uses too much power to do it in software on the general purpose hardware. To be honest, this says all you need to know about Larrabee version 1. Just ignore it. And version 2. Version 3 could be good though, many companies get version 3 right...