Apple Buys Israeli Flash Manufacturer 114
Lucas123 writes "According to published reports Apple is plunking down up to $500 million to purchase solid-state drive start-up Anobit Technologies. Even Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted about the deal congratulating Apple on its first acquisition in his country. Apple is planning to use the acquisition to set up to set up a semiconductor development center in Israel. Apple already uses NAND flash from Anobit in its iPhone, iPad and MacBook Air products, according to the reports."
Vertical Integration (Score:3)
Good to see some good ol' vertical integration still going on out there.
Re:Vertical Integration (Score:5, Insightful)
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They are already using this tech in the Air, and iOS devices
(I read somewhere)
Re:Vertical Integration (Score:4, Interesting)
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Poor bad block management causing slowdowns over time even if you have trim enabled. Also stuttering during write operations. It was a huge problem on the first generation Airs.
The first generation Airs used hard drives, not SSDs. There was an SSD option, but it cost $1000 to go from an 80GB HDD to a 64GB SSD.
Apple never used the SSD controllers which had stutter problems etc. They've always done a lot more storage qualification than your average bear, so they waited out the bad early problems and worked with vendors to get controller/firmware combos qualified before hopping in the pool.
This acquisition is not about Macs. Apple doesn't need to make its own standalone high-perfo
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Actually it makes the problem worse. If you can pick any manufacturer you like then you can test all the available chipsets and choose the best, and if later on it turns out to have a flaw you can switch to another fairly quickly. If you are making your own chips you are stuck with them, and just because it's Apple doesn't mean they will magically be immune to mistakes.
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Anobit is fabless. I can't find out who actually fabs for them, but they don't have a fab.
Re:Vertical Integration (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, but then Apple will have to start building new fab plants as the tech becomes obsolete. There's a reason why most companies, like Apple, buy all their tech from elsewhere. It costs a bloody fortune to cycle plant tech, and the reason why we have so few players. It cost billions to build the buggers.
Well, Apple has the billions to spend, and this way, they can take the technology in the direction they want to go, instead of having to go the way the SS industry decides to go. Fabulous decision, IMHO.
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Yes, but then Apple will have to start building new fab plants as the tech becomes obsolete.
Yeah, I'm not sure it would make sense for Apple to buy an entire fab unless they were using 100% of the capacity of one of their suppliers. Then they are paying for fab upgrades one way or another - either through the cost of the sub-contracted parts or directly in their own fab.
Re:Why 3rd degree removed from the task? (Score:4, Funny)
Someone set up us the semicondutor development centre.
Is this the trend? (Score:4, Interesting)
Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
China doesn't tend to make things like chips. Those are almost all made somewhere else. China is more of a "final assembly" kind of space. You send them over the parts, they build the final product for cheap.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
This is quickly changing, however. Chinese companies are establishing themselves as brands, and they themselves are using up the workforce. The pendulum is starting to shift the other way -- Chinese companies are setting up "beachheads" in Europe, and are even outsourcing jobs to cheaper countries.
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you'd get the most bang for your buck in China
Well, until we can re-legalize slavery in the U.S.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, until we can re-legalize slavery in the U.S.
That would never go over, with slaves you have to pay for their food, for their clothing, for their medical care, and for their housing.
Paying someone minimum wage is way cheaper than slave labor.
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Best when you can get a bunch of the wage back when the workers pay you for housing and food
Bonus points for paying them in a currency only redeemable at company stores.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Truck_system [wikipedia.org]
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Africa countries, actually. This is why they are building large infrastructure projects in African countries that have large mineral wealth. Specifically copper.
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Germany and Japan manage to have successful manufacturing sectors because they are not in a race to the bottom with China. Their stuff costs a bit more but is also better quality and locally produced (some people care about that).
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China doesn't tend to make things like chips. Those are almost all made somewhere else
Yes it does. Look up SMIC, one of the larger semiconductor fab companies in the world, making other people's designs.
Re:Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
China doesn't tend to make things like chips. Those are almost all made somewhere else
Yes it does. Look up SMIC, one of the larger semiconductor fab companies in the world, making other people's designs.
Are those other people aware of that fact?
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Since the other people are paying lots of money to do so, they certainly do. I work for a fabless semiconductor company, whose current chip is being manufactured by SMIC. It costs many hundreds of thousands of dollars to get them to make out chips.
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No they aren't (Score:3)
They are the biggest in China, but that isn't saying much. You want big? Look at TSMC, who's IP SMIC ripped off. It's also only older tech. 45nm is the smallest they do. That's fine, but not for cutting edge products.
Plus while there's a decent market in fabs-for-order, there's a massive market in semi-conductor companies that fab their own stuff. Intel, IBM, TI, Samsung, and so on all fab their own stuff in whole or in part.
China is not big in the chips industry, at all. They do some, but nothing compared
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China doesn't tend to make things like chips. Those are almost all made somewhere else. China is more of a "final assembly" kind of space. You send them over the parts, they build the final product for cheap.
My guess is that China thinks they do. Seeing as they believe Taiwan is still a part of China. I still think it's hilarious the West even calls it Taiwan when China calls it properly Taipei.
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That's why it says "Designed by Apple in California" on Apple products.
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(There goes my karma...)
IP Related move? (Score:5, Insightful)
Coupled with their ARM CPU developments, I think Apple is attempting to remove their dependency on component makers such as Samsung (or at least gain some IP to use as leverage). I wouldn't be surprised if Apple starts some Flash-related patent wars in a few more years.
Re:IP Related move? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you have a good point there. Samsung gets a lot of business from Apple as a supplier of flash chips. And yet at the same time they are ripping off Apple's device designs. Apple must be quite keen to ditch them as a supplier as soon as is possible.
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Apple's actually got more power over Samsung than Samsung over Apple.
Samsung just opened a new fab to make chips for Apple. Apple is Samsung's #1 customer these days. The loss of Apple's business would immediately put Samsung in a bad spot - idle fabs lose
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But their ARMs are fabbed for them by Samsung.
They are not a manufacterer (Score:5, Informative)
Damn Apple and its unbridled success (Score:5, Funny)
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That's why I use OS X. /bin/bash FTW!
Re:Damn Apple and its unbridled success (Score:5, Funny)
GRRRR! :^)
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GIRRRL! :^D
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Mach is open, the userland tools are all open, and Darwin was open for a while, though nobody demonstrated any interest in it.
OSX is like having a Linux desktop without the Linux issues, and Apple embraces open technologies and follows standards whenever possible, which in some cases is actually more than Linux does (SUS and POSIX compliance, for example).
This might not be good (Score:3)
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Now we know the real reason for the purchase.
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At least... (Score:5, Funny)
At least they bought an Israeli Flash company and not Adobe, amirite?
(Thank you, I'm here all week.)
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Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! That hurt!
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More patents (Score:5, Insightful)
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but.... (Score:2)
Anobit doesn't make NAND flash (Score:1)
Not even as a fabless designer. So no, Apple doesn't use NAND flash from Anobit in any current devices.
Anobit makes NAND flash technology. Apple uses NAND which sues some of this technology in their current devices.
Additionally, I work with NAND engineers at Apple every day and so far they all deny this acquisition is even happening. They might be lying to me, as that is part of what secrecy is, but so far it looks like the deal isn't real.
Adding to the suspicion that this might not be true is that this who
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Apple uses NAND which sues some of this technology
Freudian slip much? ;)
Misread the subject (Score:3)
Apple Buys Israeli Flesh Manufacturer
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sure it would be an important step towards iPeople, wouldn't it!
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Re:Further soiling Apple's name (Score:4, Informative)
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Currently I believe the ethnic cleansing is at its most obvious in the capital city of Jerusalem with a little in the West Bank, but historically speaking the entire country was founded on systematic ethnic cleansing and some members of the Knesset would quite like to see it make a more widespread return.
There is nothing I would rather wish for than the end of the occupation of the west bank, especially as a reserve soldier, but if it was so simple it would have been over a long time ago.
The simple fact of the matter is that Israeli governments since it began wanted it to continue and have systematically made sure it won't be by building increasing numbers of Jewish settlements deeper and d
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Currently I believe the ethnic cleansing is at its most obvious in the capital city of Jerusalem with a little in the West Bank, but historically speaking the entire country was founded on systematic ethnic cleansing and some members of the Knesset would quite like to see it make a more widespread return.
"Some members"...who?
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There is a reason importing your own population into occupied territory is prohibited by the 4th Geneva Convention, because it amounts to ethnic cleansing. The West Bank has been occupied since 1967, not 2000. There is no freeze, Tel Aviv just authorized another 1000 housing units on occupied territory, which was condemned [fco.gov.uk] by the UK, France, Germany, and Portugal.
The purpose of the entire settlement enterprise, and Zionism itself, is to take the land without the people, which is ethnic cleansing. It's wh
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In any case, the convention that you cite is inapplicable because Judea and Samaria are not "occupied". Occupation in international law refers to the control by one state of territory belonging to another. Even when Israel fully controlled Judea and Samaria, there was no occupation because Judea and Samaria were not part of any state. Legally, since the Arabs rejected the 1948 partition, Judea and Samaria are unresolved Mandate territory and
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The Israeli government is systematically stripping non-Jewish residents of Jerusalem of their residence and forcing them from their homes as a method of making it Jewish. It's a fairly slow process, but it's inexorable and has been going on for decades [sfgate.com]. If that doesn't count as ethnic cleansing, the systematic, planned and violent forcing out of non-Jewish Palestinians from their villages during the formation of Israel, with the odd massacre to encourage the rest, followed by the demolition of those village
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Investing in a regime that has WMDs, with a long history of ethnic cleansing, and brutal racism, doesn't seem like a good move to enhance one's reputation.
Doesn't it get boring jerking that same knee all the time?
Good thing they didn't buy a company based in the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France, or India...all of which fit your criteria of having WMDs and a past that includes racism.
Clearly, they shouldn't buy companies owned by humans.
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