Rumor: Apple hiring former Texas Instruments chip engineers in Israel

Apple's latest A6 SoC powers the new iPhone 5. | Source: iFixit

In a bid to expand its chip-making business in Israel, Apple has reportedly hired a number of former Texas Instruments engineers living in the country, with the new employees said to bolster the tech giant's research and development resources in the region.

People familiar with Apple's developing Israel-based operations told The Next Web that the company has been hiring "dozens" of engineers to work in the cities of Haifa and Herzliya, the latter of which being the home base of purchased the flash memory maker in December of 2011.

The sources went on to say that Apple is picking up former TI employees who were laid off in a culling of 250 jobs at the company's Ra'anana location, which itself is part of a larger global workforce cutdown of around 1,700 employees. According to TI Israel's website, the Ra'anana campus was responsible for wireless connectivity solutions like WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS and OMAP products. OMAP, or Open Multimedia Applications Platform, is a type of system-on-a-chip developed by the Texas-based company currently being used in portable devices like Amazon's Kindle Fire HD.

Apple in April was reported to be gearing up for a major hiring campaign to fill spots at its Israel R&D center located in Haifa's Scientific Industries Center, which boasts a collective of high-tech companies like Google, Intel and IBM. The recent TI Israel hires won't be the first for Apple, as former Deputy CEO Etai Zaitsman is said to be working on the Haifa initiative headed up by Aharon Aharon, a veteran of Israel's tech industry.

In May, AppleInsider discovered a number of listings on Apple's job board for SoC engineers located in the Haifa and Herzliya Pituah regions of Israel.

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33 Comments

tallest skil

said about 11 years ago

sockrolid

said about 11 years ago

Another small step toward the inevitable Intel-free Apple future. Intel Core i7: $1000. Apple A6X: $17.50. Do the math.

hmm

said about 11 years ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by SockRolid

Another small step toward the inevitable Intel-free Apple future.
Intel Core i7: $1000.
Apple A6X: $17.50.
Do the math.

You already know those aren't feasible numbers.

mr beardsley

said about 11 years ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by hmm

You already know those aren't feasible numbers.

True, but if you can also look at it this way. An Intel Core i7 3610QM starts for $378. Since Apple buys large volumes, let's just put it $300 for comparison sake. The Intel part is 160 square millimeters. That is roughly $1.88 per square millimeter in die area.

If you look at the A6, it is 96.71 square millimeters for a total cost of $17.50. That is $0.18 per square millimeter, or about a factor of 10 cheaper.

azn1337c0d3r

said about 11 years ago

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mr Beardsley

If you look at the A6, it is 96.71 square millimeters for a total cost of $17.50. That is $0.18 per square millimeter, or about a factor of 10 cheaper.

This is comparing apples (no pun intended) to oranges. Intel's process advantage right now is almost one whole node in front of everyone else. If they made A6 on Intel's latest process, it would probably run 1.5 times faster and use 75% the power.

Furthermore, Apple isn't paying R&D costs when it is purchasing those chips from Samsung. Intel has to factor in the price of the billions it spends on R&D when it sells the i7-3610QM.

Finally, if Intel made 3610QMs at the volumes that Apple uses A6s, the price would be far less than $300 since the marginal cost of each additional chip is quite small.

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