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"Orange San Diego review: Intel comes to smartphones"
Reply to: by Gadgeteer21
I wouldn’t really call that “custom silicon” in the same sense though. Intel delivered more HD4000-equipped IB chips when Apple asked them but it’s not as if Intel put a completely different block of GPU on the chip.
With A4-A5-A5X, Apple had a much higher level of control on which IP to use for each section, be it the CPU, memory controller, GPU, DSP units, etc. Intel’s business model just doesn’t allow that level of control and the ARM-based industry is full of different SoC design companies with different IPs and expertise offering products over all sorts of segments, sometimes even on the CPU itself.
The point here is Intel has disadvantages in both compatibility and customization to at least some degree. To make chips more palatable over proven ARM chips, Intel has to either really outdoes ARM in performance or make them really cheap but at this point they really aren’t there.
Reply to: by Gadgeteer21
I wouldn’t really call that “custom silicon” in the same sense though. Intel delivered more HD4000-equipped IB chips when Apple asked them but it’s not as if Intel put a completely different block of GPU on the chip.
With A4-A5-A5X, Apple had a much higher level of control on which IP to use for each section, be it the CPU, memory controller, GPU, DSP units, etc. Intel’s business model just doesn’t allow that level of control and the ARM-based industry is full of different SoC design companies with different IPs and expertise offering products over all sorts of segments, sometimes even on the CPU itself.
The point here is Intel has disadvantages in both compatibility and customization to at least some degree. To make chips more palatable over proven ARM chips, Intel has to either really outdoes ARM in performance or make them really cheap but at this point they really aren’t there.