Yokemate of Keyboards
Posts: 12132 from 2003/5/22
From: Germany
> I'm completely confident that Freescale will release the products they announce.
You mean like the
MPC75xx or the MPC87xx (e700 core)? ;-)
> Applied Micro on the other hand seems to regularly announce products
> before they're even assured that they will be produced.
The most confusing thing is that they said that Titan/APM83290 samples had been in the hands of (selected) customers who successfully validated the chip for their products, which is for about a year now:
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Paramesh Gopi: I am extremely pleased to report that we are sampling 1.5 GHz multi-core SMP devices in an extremely cost optimized TSMC 90 nm node. [...] Our current TSMC core has garnered a tremendous amount of interest in the document processing and control processor segments and we look forward to reporting upcoming wins at major tier 1 OEMs as they materialize. [...] We are sampling the world's first TSMC-based dual core SMP 1.5 GB [sic!] power architecture SoC.
[...]
Robert Gargus: [...] I just want to caution you that this is a chip that we have just begun sampling. So it's not yet really into production and generating revenue. It's probably still a couple of quarters, two to three quarters away from starting to generate any kind of meaningful revenue on our P&L. But the amount of interest--and if you want, customer interaction on the chip is very encouraging at this point in time.
[...]
Allan Mishan: Hey Guys, quick question on the Titan products. You specifically mentioned document processing and control plane as areas where you're targeting now. Are you also offering Titan to all the other applications where you've historically worked with the IBM products as well or really are those two the priorities in the near term?
[...]
Robert Gargus: I think the ones we mentioned are just the ones that we can point to in terms of design activity that's going on currently. But over time, we expect to have that chip find its way into many, many more places.------------------------------
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/711065/000119312509223997/dex992.htm (transcript of Applied Micro's second quarter 2010 earnings conference call in late October 2009)
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Paramesh Gopi - Applied Micro Circuits Corporation - President, CEO
[...] we are extremely pleased with the reception of our TSMC-based 1.5 gigahertz multicore SMP device. We have secured the first of a series of SoC design wins in Tier 1 enterprise document processing systems. The integration of power-efficient cores in an established mature TSMC process node, coupled with our industry-leading packet processing IP and DSP subsystems, enable highly efficient implementations of image pipes, as well as network document and video processing functions. This has firmly established us as the leader in providing multicore, power efficient, multi-gigahertz cores to a wide customer base. We expect to announce meaningful revenue in 2011 resulting from these designs. Additionally, we are pleased to report that the validation of our cores at major customers sets the stage for our migration to 40 and 28 nanometer process nodes, and ensures that our core technologies are fully scalable. [...] Power architecture has never had the same accessibility as other architectures in very normal vanilla CMOS processes. So a lot of the initial barrier was nobody believed us. There was a huge amount of skepticism as to whether we would even get a gigahertz core at a process node that was 90 nanometer, much less anything that is 65 or 40. The uniform feedback was, you guys have shown us slides for three years, make us believe it. So I think I would say the last six months have proven beyond doubt that there is no more uncertainty in us being able to develop, sample, validate and drive our internal core architecture into the market. [...] So we have pretty much proven that there is a secret sauce and it has been a lot of work, but I think very few companies in this world can boast of a gigahertz plus architectures, especially in the PowerPC space in a TSMC process. So I think where we have established that beyond doubt that we can execute that. So now it is a matter of essentially driving that into real business. And that process has started very, very nicely in earnest with our key customers. As they see performance and they see cost and they see the scalability to do the 4 to 6 to 8, I mean, it is a full SMP-capable core and interconnect subsystem, so it is all there.------------------------------
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/711065/000119312510020952/dex992.htm (transcript of Applied Micro's third quarter 2010 earnings conference call in late January 2010)
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Paramesh Gopi - Applied Micro Circuits Corporation - President, CEO
[...] we also had success in the enterprise market where we won a Tier 1 cost-optimized wireless access point designed for the China and India markets. This was enabled once again by our cost-optimized, customized, power-efficient multicore technology being brought to a new cost point. Overall, I'm extremely pleased with our penetration into our target segment and our overall design execution.------------------------------
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/711065/000119312510109166/dex992.htm (transcript of Applied Micro's fourth quarter 2010 earnings conference call in late April 2010)
So the question is: What went wrong? Is it really due to Intrinsity's acquisition by Apple as some suspect? On the topic of Apple/Intrinsity I only found the following from the April 2010 conference call:
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Robert Gargus - Applied Micro Circuits Corporation - SVP, CFO
[...] Following the end of the quarter, a company where we had an equity investment was acquired by Apple. As a result of this transaction, we realized the full value of our investment, which was approximately $5.4 million. We received this cash earlier in the month. [...] The $206.6 million cash balance excludes [...] the $5 million received in the first week of April upon the sale of our equity investment to Apple.------------------------------
> who has more credibility Freescale who inherited Motorola's CPU production
> technology or Applied Micro who licensed low end IBM designs?
I think they both have plenty of skeletons in their respective closets.