Apple custom chip guru jumps ship to rejoin Intel
(2022/01/07)
- Reference: 1641511748
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/01/06/apple_wilcox_intel/
- Source link:
Apple’s top silicon lead Jeff Wilcox, who led the iGiant's push to develop homegrown chips, has left his role to start a new job at Intel.
Wilcox announced he had returned to his old employer in a LinkedIn post, this week. "I’m pleased to share that I have started a new position as Intel Fellow, Design Engineering Group CTO, Client SoC Architecture at Intel Corporation," he [1]said . "I could not be more thrilled to be back working with the amazing teams there to help create groundbreaking SOCs. Great things are ahead!"
It’s an interesting reversal considering his previous position at Apple as Director, Mac System Architecture, was focused on replacing all Intel silicon in Apple’s products with its own custom silicon. Wilcox oversaw the iGiant’s transition to build its own chips, like the Arm-based [2]M1 CPU in its 2020 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and the latest iPad Pro and iMac. The 2021 line of MacBook Pros feature the more powerful [3]M1 pro and M1 Max processors .
[4]
He also worked on [5]T2 , Apple’s security chip, a secure enclave processor (SEP) that handles various applications from Touch ID data to encrypted storage. Again, the T2 chip is based on Arm’s blueprints and not Intel’s x86 instruction set. The T2 was released commercially in 2018 in Apple’s computers and laptops.
[6]
“After an amazing eight years I have decided to leave Apple and pursue another opportunity,” Wilcox [7]said .
“It has been an incredible ride and I could not be prouder of all we accomplished during my time there, culminating in the Apple SIlicon transition with the M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max SOCs and systems. I will dearly miss all of my Apple colleagues and friends, but I am looking forward to the next journey which will start at the first of the year.”
[8]Intel rolls out new Alder Lake chips for laptops, desktops
[9]Intel's mystery Linux muckabout is a dangerous ploy at a dangerous time
[10]AWS adds another Arm CPU to its cloud: Apple's M1
[11]Arm'd with ex-Apple engineers from Nuvia, Qualcomm hopes to make Apple M1-matching chips for Windows PCs
Wilcox was previously a principal engineer at Intel, where he was lead architect for client PC chipsets for three years. He also had brief stints at as an engineer and architect at Magnum Semiconductor, a video compression technology company that was acquired by GigOptix in 2016 and now known as GigPeak, as well as a spell Nvidia. ®
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[1] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jeffwilcox_after-an-amazing-eight-years-i-have-decided-activity-6879099177184448512-ZlHf/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/10/apple_silicon_debut/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/18/apple_macbook_pro/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YdfI-K5ZRPlmM4-FUKeA4AAAAMQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/08/apple_t2_security_chip/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YdfI-K5ZRPlmM4-FUKeA4AAAAMQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jeffwilcox_after-an-amazing-eight-years-i-have-decided-activity-6879099177184448512-ZlHf/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/04/intel_alder_lake/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/13/chipzillas_mystery_linux_muckabout_is/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/03/aws_m1_macs_ec2/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/16/qualcomm_pc_chip/
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Wilcox announced he had returned to his old employer in a LinkedIn post, this week. "I’m pleased to share that I have started a new position as Intel Fellow, Design Engineering Group CTO, Client SoC Architecture at Intel Corporation," he [1]said . "I could not be more thrilled to be back working with the amazing teams there to help create groundbreaking SOCs. Great things are ahead!"
It’s an interesting reversal considering his previous position at Apple as Director, Mac System Architecture, was focused on replacing all Intel silicon in Apple’s products with its own custom silicon. Wilcox oversaw the iGiant’s transition to build its own chips, like the Arm-based [2]M1 CPU in its 2020 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and the latest iPad Pro and iMac. The 2021 line of MacBook Pros feature the more powerful [3]M1 pro and M1 Max processors .
[4]
He also worked on [5]T2 , Apple’s security chip, a secure enclave processor (SEP) that handles various applications from Touch ID data to encrypted storage. Again, the T2 chip is based on Arm’s blueprints and not Intel’s x86 instruction set. The T2 was released commercially in 2018 in Apple’s computers and laptops.
[6]
“After an amazing eight years I have decided to leave Apple and pursue another opportunity,” Wilcox [7]said .
“It has been an incredible ride and I could not be prouder of all we accomplished during my time there, culminating in the Apple SIlicon transition with the M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max SOCs and systems. I will dearly miss all of my Apple colleagues and friends, but I am looking forward to the next journey which will start at the first of the year.”
[8]Intel rolls out new Alder Lake chips for laptops, desktops
[9]Intel's mystery Linux muckabout is a dangerous ploy at a dangerous time
[10]AWS adds another Arm CPU to its cloud: Apple's M1
[11]Arm'd with ex-Apple engineers from Nuvia, Qualcomm hopes to make Apple M1-matching chips for Windows PCs
Wilcox was previously a principal engineer at Intel, where he was lead architect for client PC chipsets for three years. He also had brief stints at as an engineer and architect at Magnum Semiconductor, a video compression technology company that was acquired by GigOptix in 2016 and now known as GigPeak, as well as a spell Nvidia. ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jeffwilcox_after-an-amazing-eight-years-i-have-decided-activity-6879099177184448512-ZlHf/
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/10/apple_silicon_debut/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/10/18/apple_macbook_pro/
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YdfI-K5ZRPlmM4-FUKeA4AAAAMQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/08/apple_t2_security_chip/
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YdfI-K5ZRPlmM4-FUKeA4AAAAMQ&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/jeffwilcox_after-an-amazing-eight-years-i-have-decided-activity-6879099177184448512-ZlHf/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/04/intel_alder_lake/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/13/chipzillas_mystery_linux_muckabout_is/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/03/aws_m1_macs_ec2/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2021/11/16/qualcomm_pc_chip/
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: My cynical side thinks this is no accident.
Ian 55
All I'll say is that I'd like his pay package.
ARM, RISC-V
Chris Gray 1
"Client SOC Architecture". I wonder what his NDAs are like? Could he be targetted at doing something at Intel that is quite similar to what he did at Apple? I doubt he would be terribly interested in diving into X86-64 stuff (no-one wants to do that!), unless it is at an architecture-independent level. Intel have announced they will be doing SOC's based on ARM and RISC-V, so those, or general stuff, is my guess. (See "Integrated Device Manufacturing", IDM 2.0)
Re: ARM, RISC-V
DS999
Non competes aren't enforceable in California, so while he can't reveal/use Apple's secrets, he can work in exactly the same niche he was at Apple without problems.
My cynical side thinks this is no accident.
He's had time to gather as much insider info as possible, now he's jumped ship back to his old masters, this time with a treasure trove to "prove" he's back for good.
How long before he "defects" again, this time back to Apple, doing the exact same stunt to "prove" his previous pseudo-defection was just a ruse so he could gather intel on Intel to present to his new/old Apple masters?
Either I'm paranoid as hell or I'm not paranoid enough... =-/