Apple Open to iPad Price Cuts and PA Semi not Responsible for A4 Chip

Submitted by lalit on February 8, 2010 - 2:40pm.

Credit Suisse analyst Bill Shope wrote in his research note that Apple is open to iPad price cut if the demand of the device is lower than expected, like the company did after iPhone launch in 2007. He wrote after his meeting with Apple executives “While it remains to be seen how much traction the iPad gets initially, management noted that it will remain nimble (pricing could change if the company is not attracting as many customers as anticipated)”. Shope also noted that Apple doesn’t believe iPad will cannibalize sales of products like iPhone, iPod or MacBooks.

In other iPad related news, VentureBeat claims that PA Semi the company Apple bought in 2008 to design its own processors wasn’t responsible for A4 chip. A very trusted source told Paul Boutin:

“PA Semi didn’t do the A4. It was the existing VLSI team. Apple has made custom chips for years like the Northbridges for G4 and G5.”

Apple use to design chipset for PowerPC processors and it is very likely that they started working on a custom ARM solution even before Apple bought PA Semi. Our sources say that PA Semi engineers are presently playing a very big role in Apple’s processor development plans and they might have been part of A4 development also.