Apple-AMD Rumors Gain Traction

Arik Hesseldahl

I've asked Hector Ruiz, the CEO of chipmaker Advanced Micro Devices about his views on Apple several times, especially in light of Apple's switch to using chips from Intel over the last year and change. He's always been at once supportive of Apple, and happy that the Mac now runs on an x86-based processor. But he's never confirmed any talks between Apple and AMD concerning microprocessor supply deals.

So what then to make of this? Digitimes of Taiwan, which is often a good source of early warning intelligence about such things, is reporting on the surge in demand for a particular type of component that is going to be used in an Apple-made notebook that would use an AMD chip.

The component is called a Multi-Layer Ceramic Capacitor or MLCC, and the notebook in question allegedly requires 70 of these parts, and supplies of the part are already tight. A current Apple notebook using an Intel dual-core chip apparently requires 80 of these MLCCs.

One interesting note, is that AMD recently acquired graphics chipmaker ATI, and Apple is an ATI customer. Owning ATI gives AMD yet another entry into Apple HQ in Cupertino, and would offer AMD the chance to give Apple some pretty sweet package deals. But then again, its not as if Hector and Steve Jobs don't already have each others phone numbers.

But here's one reason I'm doubtful about this report: AMD can't make enough chips right now to meet its current demand. I've heard from a few PC makers that AMD's factories are on allocation status, which is industry jargon that means not everyone is getting as many chips as they've ordered. One big reason for this is AMD's new relationship with Dell.

If ever Apple and AMD do business together, however, I think it will be on the server front. Server customers like flexibility and having the ability to choose the chip you want is important to server customers, so I think we'd see an AMD-based XServe before an AMD-based Mac Pro.

That said, the number of Intel-only PC makers is dwindling. The only other Intel-only major PC maker I can think of is Toshiba, and it only makes notebooks. After losing some of Dell's business to AMD, Intel will put up a fight to keep its exclusivity with Apple, which, honestly, wouldn't be a bad thing.