I'm sure you've seen the tag line: Intel Inside, the
world's most popular warning label. Well, if our source is correct,
Intel may have the last laugh when it comes to the
Macintosh.
In a huge surprise to the computer industry, Motorola is
giving up on the PowerPC chip and selling its PPC business to
Intel. Motorola has been unable to produce high yields of chips
above 500 MHz, while Intel is already pushing 1.4 GHz with
the Pentium 4 and has better manufacturing capabilities. Intel is
able to quickly ramp up high speed processors with a high
yield.
Intel has factories under construction in Oregon, Colorado,
Arizona, Colorado, and Massachusetts. Sources close to the deal say
that Intel will soon outfit these factories not only for Intel
Pentium 4 processors but for the PowerPC G4 processor as
well. Sources also say that Intel has already acquired a site in
the Nevada desert, code named Area 52, so they can produce
small amounts of the superfast G4 chip "immediate after the deal
closes."
Most of this information has been difficult to obtain, but
Motorola sources have revealed that Motorola is selling all its
PPC-related patents to Intel. The deal is similar to the way
Intel acquired the Alpha processor from Digital.
It is not known what will happen to the PowerPC under Intel's
direction. Sources says that Intel is not likely to change the name
of the chip, but it may merge the Pentium architecture with the
PowerPC to create a hybrid chip. This hybrid would be
backwards compatible with older x86 apps, but allow the PowerPC to
have the majority of the processing capabilities. (Remind anyone of
the PowerPC 615 project long rumored from IBM?) These
changes are many years off and will need a great bit of work.
This deal gives Intel an edge in the microprocessor wars, since
it has "missed the boat" on the P4 and has been losing market
share to AMD and its Athlon processors.
Sources says that Apple has been involved in the
discussion since the beginning and may have started the deal. This
helps explain the ongoing rumors of an x86 build of Mac
OS X.
Motorola will continue to make other chips and computer
components. The price of the deal is unknown. Sources indicate that
the part of the deal may be include Intel acquiring key engineers
from the Texas PowerPC design facility.
This information comes from a usually reliable source (the
janitor responsible for shredding documents at one of the companies
involved), but we give it about as much likelihood as the recount
in Florida matching two times in a row.
- Anne Onymus
