I wish people would stop obsessing about PA. That acquisition was a fiasco. All the talent bailed after a tiny lock in period, went to a "startup", and were promptly "acquired" by the googs. The whole thing was a mess that should have ended with a vp or director "pursuing other opportunities".
The Intrinsity talent buy was way better. Those guys actually put out product and have a functional team.
I have over 100 people in my LinkedIn network who were ever at PA Semi, and 53% of them are still at Apple. Where's the evidence that "all the talent bailed" ? Some of the key architects and leaders moved on, but I think that's not unusual.
Yup. Apple has been putting together a CPU team for a long long time now, including high-perf simulators, libraries, etc. etc.
However, the point about this catching up to them and biting them is a real possibility. Now, they have a lot of discipline, it seems, and that is critical. The other part is having a very tightly closed platform with control of the entire toolchain.
The Intrinsity talent buy was way better. Those guys actually put out product and have a functional team.