1,000 is probably wrong, counting every possible person who is vaguely related to hardware.
But the PA Semi team is way larger than 20 engineers, that's for sure. Even before the acquisition by Apple, they had way more engineers than 20. I'm the guy who filmed their product launch at the Power Conference.
Wikipedia says 150 people for PA Semi before they got acquired.
1,000 has to be wrong for two reasons. 1) That's an explosion in staff which your organization can't handle 2) 1,000 people on one chip is ridiculous and only something Intel gets away with.
A good estimate for a SoC would top out at around 200 people for the design, implementation and a 100% NIH syndrome.
Comments
1,000 is probably wrong, counting every possible person who is vaguely related to hardware.
But the PA Semi team is way larger than 20 engineers, that's for sure. Even before the acquisition by Apple, they had way more engineers than 20. I'm the guy who filmed their product launch at the Power Conference.
Wikipedia says 150 people for PA Semi before they got acquired.
1,000 has to be wrong for two reasons. 1) That's an explosion in staff which your organization can't handle 2) 1,000 people on one chip is ridiculous and only something Intel gets away with.
A good estimate for a SoC would top out at around 200 people for the design, implementation and a 100% NIH syndrome.
It's chips, not one chip. I would guess that A7, A8, and A9 are being designed in parallel.
Of course they are. How long does it take to get from design to production? Apple takes the long view here.
It doesn't have to be only one chip, or one edition of one chip.