AMD failed to provide 'Llano' chip for Apple's MacBook Air because of faulty parts
AMD has been through several reinventions in recent years in a quest to find a niche to call its own. The company was an early competitor to chip giant Intel, but it has struggled to keep up pace with its rival as of late.
Brian Caulfield reports for Forbes that new "fusion" processors from AMD had a shot at upstaging Intel by making their way into Apple's popular MacBook Air notebook for last year's refresh. People familiar with the matter indicated that Apple had given the "Llano" processor, which combined the CPU and GPU into one part, serious consideration for use in its thin-and-light portable.
However, a former employee indicated that AMD was unable to get early working samples of the chip to Apple on time, though tipsters disagreed on exactly how close the company was to delivering the chip, with one claiming that AMD "had it." According to the report, too many of the parts ended up being faulty and AMD lost the deal.
Sources also said AMD had proposed a low-power processor named "Brazos" for a revamp of the Apple TV box, but Apple declined to go with the option. "Brazos" went on to make inroads in the netbook industry and reportedly kept the company afloat.
"If Brazos had been killed, AMD wouldnât be in business," one former employee said.
A separate report from late last year also claimed that Apple had considered the AMD "Llano" option "plan A" for its MacBook Air, but AMD was said to have "dropped the ball" at the last minute.
Apple released the Thunderbolt MacBook Air last July with Intel's Sandy Bridge processors powering the notebooks. The machines became an instant success and reportedly jumped to 28 percent of the company's notebook shipments just months after they were released.
57 Comments
Gotta get that manufacturing process down AMD.
I doubt AMD would even be able to ramp up to build enough chips for Apple.
Probably for the best. Even with OpenCL, with I/O taken care of with SSDs, the biggest contributor to user performance experience for most tasks is CPU speed and Llano can't compare to Sandy Bridge on the CPU side. And the HD 3000 is doing surprising well with even the latest AAA Mac games supporting it including RAGE, Batman Arkham Asylum, and Bioshock 2 so some GPU performance is left on the table compared to Llano, but game/driver compatibility problems seem to have been solved. Llano couldn't match LV Sandy Bridge's 17W TDP either. For a "Plan B", the Sandy Bridge MacBook Air turned out surprisingly well.
I doubt AMD would even be able to ramp up to build enough chips for Apple.
Apple is twice burned, thrice shy with CPU manufacturers. First Motorola, then IBM failed to ramp up PowerPC clock speeds and also failed to fix hardware bugs in their chips. AMD probably would have made all kinds of excuses for low yields, poor reliability, etc. Apple doesn't need to hear that all over again.
Apple is twice burned, thrice shy with CPU manufacturers. First Motorola, then IBM failed to ramp up PowerPC clock speeds and also failed to fix hardware bugs in their chips. AMD probably would have made all kinds of excuses for low yields, poor reliability, etc. Apple doesn't need to hear that all over again.
While Apple will gamble on entering new markets or using the latest technology, they won't gamble on other company's promises to do it right once we get your contract. Too bad, but 99.9% of the needed parts still means zero final product out the door.