@Overflow

that is from annual report of Applied Micro Circuits. It explains I think why a different processor is selected and new hardware developed. And it shows the decline of PPC in general.


"As part of our current business, we offer a line of embedded computing products based on Power Architecture, sometimes referred to as PowerPC
products. Our HeliX family of embedded products is based on the ARM Instruction Set Architecture (“ISA”), and we expect that our future embedded
processor products will also be based on the ARM ISA. Our embedded processor products are currently deployed in applications such as control- and dataplane
management, wireless access points, residential gateways, wireless base stations, storage controllers, network attached storage, network switches and
routing products, and multi-function printers.

We do not own or operate foundries for the production of silicon wafers from which our products are made. We use external foundries, primarily Taiwan
Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation (“TSMC”) and to a lesser extent, IBM, for our silicon wafer needs. In late 2014, IBM announced that it had
agreed to sell its foundry business to GlobalFoundries, which we believe has contributed to the continuing decline in demand for our PowerPC products,
which are based on IBM’s Power Architecture. Subcontracting our manufacturing requirements eliminates the high fixed cost of owning and operating a
semiconductor wafer fabrication facility and enables us to

For our Computing
business, as well, the migration of the networking industry away from products utilizing the PowerPC architecture and towards products utilizing other
architectures such as ARM, has presented challenges. In line with such migration, we are no longer introducing new PowerPC product designs and are
reducing our resources equipped to support our older PowerPC product lines. Moreover, as many of our older, PowerPC-based Computing products are
experiencing declining sales, we will increasingly depend on revenues from our new ARM-based products, such as the X-Gene product family and our HeliX
embedded products."

Source:
http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/711065/000144530514002375/amcc331201410-k.htm

[ Editiert durch OlafSch 20.10.2015 - 09:02 ]