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| Formerly | Palo Alto Semiconductor[1] |
|---|---|
| Industry | Fabless semiconductor company |
| Founded | 2003 |
| Founder | Daniel W. Dobberpuhl |
| Defunct | 2008 |
| Fate | Acquired by Apple |
| Headquarters | , |
| Products | PWRficient processor |
Number of employees | 150 person engineering team |
| Website | pasemi.com at theWayback Machine (archived September 27, 2007) |
P. A. Semi (originallyPalo Alto Semiconductor[1]) was an Americanfabless semiconductor company founded inSanta Clara, California in 2003 byDaniel W. Dobberpuhl,[2][3] who was previously the lead designer for theDECAlpha 21064 andStrongARM processors. The company employed a 150-person engineering team includingJim Keller,[1] which included people who had previously worked on processors likeItanium,Opteron andUltraSPARC.[4]Apple Inc acquired P.A. Semi for $278 million in April 2008.[5]
P.A. Semi developed thePWRficient PA6T-1682M CPU, which was used in theAmigaOne X1000.
P. A. Semi concentrated on making powerful and power-efficientPower ISA processors calledPWRficient, based on thePA6T processor core.[6] The PA6T was the first Power ISA core to be designed from scratch outside theAIM alliance (i.e. not byApple,IBM, orMotorola/Freescale) in ten years.Texas Instruments was one of the investors in P.A. Semi and it was suggested that their fabrication plants would be used to manufacture the PWRficient processors.[7]
The PA6T isPowerPC v2.04 compatible.The PA6T is a deeply pipelined, out of order, superscalar core.[8]
PWRficient processors were shipping to select customers, and were set to be released for worldwide sale in Q4 2007.[9]
There were rumors that P. A. Semi had a relationship withApple that suggested Apple would be the premier user of the PWRficient processors. That relationship supposedly ended with theMac transition to Intel processors when Apple switched from the PowerPC toIntel'sCore processors for their entire line of computers.[10] Therefore, when P. A. Semi first publicly disclosed PWRficient, the company instead targeted embedded systems, such as networking equipment.[11]
On 23 April 2008, Apple announced that they had acquired P. A. Semi for $278 million.[12][5][13] The acquisition came with P.A. Semi's 150-person engineering team.[13] While Apple's previous relationship with P. A. Semi would indicate that Apple could use their processors, P. A. Semi manufactures only Power ISA processors, which Apple did not use at the time.
On 11 June 2008, during the annual Worldwide Developer's Conference, Apple CEOSteve Jobs said that the acquisition was meant to add the talent of P. A. Semi's engineers to Apple's workforce and help them build custom chips for theiPod,iPhone, and other future mobile devices[14] such as theiPad.[15] P.A. Semi has said that they were willing to supply their PWRficient PA6T-1682M chip on an end-of-life basis, if the Power ISA license that P.A. Semi holds fromIBM could be transferred to the acquiring company.[16]
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