Why Apple Developed It's Own Chip For The iPad

Here's a very well written article from Technology Review about why Apple bought its own chip expertise and why Apple needs to design its own chips.

And it's so well written that even I understood the techno-babble in it.  I don't try to use Onxo on these kinds of hardware topics but given the attention everyone has afford the iPad, both good analysis and the reactionary ones, I thought I'd share this one with you.

What's interesting is that even at this point, Apple is looking to control every element of its hardware development.  We already know about how Cupertino is with software and user experience.  One thing that struck out at me is that the current chip Apple uses from Samsung costs Apple $15 each but design its own may only cost $5.

Going forward, Apple will be using this chip on a majority of its products, iPad, iPod Touch, and the iPhone. We are looking at a combination of 40-60 million units a year.  At a saving of $10 per chip by moving away from a 3rd party to one of its own chip, Apple is looking to profit between 400 to 600 million dollars a year.

On the market scale, this is something many of its competitors cannot match.

More at Technology Review.