Apple at the top of the ARM (3/7): Apple had no reason to buy PA Semi

In 2006, the information was fairly widely passed under the radar, but the switch towards Intel processors was not the only possible solution to get Apple out of the PowerPC rut. This year, The Register found the very advanced negotiations between Cupertino and a small neighboring company which was working on its own version of the POWER architecture, the very one from which the PowerPC family was derived.

PA Semi, the processor that thinks differently

At PA Semi – since it is her – a whole team was working at the time on the possibility of using its processor in a future Mac. The company even acquired a PowerPC license from the Apple-Motorola-IBM alliance, incorporating AltiVec technology, this set of instructions that gives all their power to the PowerPC G4 and G5. A choice that makes PA Semi a UFO in the world of processors: not only does this company not want to manufacture its chips itself, but it is focusing on an architecture that has failed to find its place outside of a few specialized areas, such as the Macintosh and some game consoles.

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