Google has reportedly poached one of Apple's top chip designers, as it continues to pursue plans to design its own chipsets for consumer devices like its Pixel range of smartphones.
According to The Information, the search giant has hired well-regarded Apple chip expert John Bruno, who has worked on silicon architecture for iPhones since 2012. Before moving offices to Cupertino to help with Apple's ARM-based mobile chip push, Bruno worked at Advanced Micro Devices and led chip design at ATI Technologies.
Bruno founded and managed Apple's silicon competitive analysis group, which sought to keep the company ahead of competitors in the area of chip performance. He follows several other experienced chip engineers who have defected to Google from Apple over the past year, including Manu Gulati, Wonjae (Gregory) Choi and Tayo Fadelu.
The hires highlight Google's attempt to keep pace with Apple, which has been designing its own mobile chips since 2010. Recently, Google said it would sell chips known as Cloud Tensor Processing Units (TPU) to other companies so that they could benefit from its deep learning tool set, TensorFlow. However, the recruitment drive is more likely to be aimed at making own-branded chips for Google's Pixel smartphones.
Indeed, Google's first mobile chip could be right around the corner, according to Jim McGregor, an analyst at Tirias Research who spoke to The Information. With the help of off-the-shelf intellectual property, the Mountain View-based tech giant could have a multifunctional system-on-a-chip up and running in as soon as six months, McGregor said.
Top Rated Comments
(View all)(Not blaming) In the Tim Cook era, all the talents are flowing out off Apple. ‘M concerned.
This is ridiculous. John Bruno only came to Apple in 2012. So well within the Tim Cook Era. Stop blaming everything on Tim Cook, it's just getting ridiculous. Cook is doing a great job. Is he fault free? No, but neither was Steve. He produced a toxic work environment and was feared. Furthermore, under Steve a lot mistakes happened, too. Just look at the whole mobileMe disaster, the iPhone 4 debacle (not just Antennagate but the proximity censors and bluetooth issues that took 2+ months to solve via an update) and Steve's believe that the iPhone 5 was big enough screen wise and nearly killed apple. Why do you think the iPhone 6 was so late to the game with the bigger screens? Because Steve laid out the roadmap with the iPhone 4s, iPhone 5 and iPhone 5s. Steve was a great visionary, but he also did not get everything right.(Not blaming) In the Tim Cook era, all the talents are flowing out off Apple. ‘M concerned. The only assurance it seems, is Jony Ive not leaving the company.
So this never happened in the Steve Jobs era? And how much great talent has Apple poached from other companies in the last years?That Tim Cook hate born out of irrational Steve Jobs nostalgia is getting more bizarre every day.
Good luck in your new position!
. . . . No, but neither was Steve. He produced a toxic work environment and was feared. . . .
And that is a good description of the difference. People had to perform under Jobs or they were disciplined. Under Cook, it seems that there is no downside for poor performance. Hence we see a lot more of it.There are a few good engineers at Apple, but a lot of people that just enjoy the ability to bully Apple customers. For example, removing software functionality because it easier than making it work or updating it. Cook appears to have no idea about product strategy (particularly software) and has not shown any innovation, only predictable but late incremental improvements.
Apple products are all over the place with example of not even being able to use Apple products with other Apple products. For example new iMac's with fusion drives won't work with High Sierra. Who releases new OS software that does not work with your flagship product. No one except Cook's organization. I doubt he even knows about it.