The Redmond company follows the competition and wants to develop its own chips in the future.
(Photo: dpa)
San Francisco In times when more and more tech companies are developing their own chips, chip designers are among the most sought-after workers. One of them is particularly popular: Mike Filippo, up to now a chip architect at Apple, will apparently soon switch to competitor Microsoft. The Bloomberg news agency reported on Wednesday, citing insiders. Microsoft confirmed the report to Bloomberg.
According to this, Filippo should hire the Microsoft cloud subsidiary Azure under the direction of Rani Borkar in order to promote the development of its own semiconductors for the group’s data centers. Microsoft is following the market leader Amazon Web Services (AWS), which, like the technology group Google, has been relying on hardware developed in-house for its servers for several years.
Apple also began developing its own semiconductors for its smartphones, tablets and computers as early as 2020. Filippo, who switched from chip developer ARM to the Cupertino group in 2019, played a key role. Even at ARM, he was considered an expert on chips that are used in mobile devices such as smartphones. The chips from Amazon and Apple are based on the same technology.
Filippo’s departure is a loss for the iPhone manufacturer. Apple achieved its goal of equipping all of its products with its own chips only two years ago with the introduction of the new MacBook Pro last year. But it will be difficult to replace such an experienced developer whose career is closely tied to what is now perhaps the most important chip technology for mobile devices.
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As early as 1996, after completing his studies as an electrical engineer, Filippo began developing microprocessors for the Intel competitor Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). He later moved to Intel as chief architect, where he designed high-performance processors, among other things. In 2009 he started his career at ARM, where he was responsible for various chip architectures over the course of the next ten years, on which, among other things, the chips of some Amazon servers are based today.
Filippo’s new employer Microsoft Azure is considered the most dangerous competitor for the cloud market leader AWS. So far, the challenger has relied on chips from Intel and Filippo’s first employer, AMD, in its data centers. However, Bloomberg had already reported last year that the company was working on its own chips for its servers and possibly also for its Surface devices. Microsoft finally advertised a corresponding position in October 2021.
It is to be expected that chip designers like Filippo will be even more competitive in the future. Because the trend that technology companies are developing their own semiconductors to perform special tasks such as AI applications is likely to intensify in the coming years – also as a reaction to the current chip crisis, which is making it difficult for many companies to meet their demand for semiconductors cover up.
This is putting pressure on established manufacturers such as Intel or AMD, who have previously supplied the tech industry with their microprocessors. The announcement of the personality also had a corresponding effect on the share price of both companies. At times, Intel titles lost two percent on Wednesday and AMD at least 1.1 percent. The Apple price, on the other hand, showed no reaction, while Microsoft shares were up one percent.
From the point of view of Bloomberg expert Mark Gurman, Microsoft has succeeded in an “important poaching” with Filippo, while Apple now has to cope with another loss in its chip team. It only recently became known that Jeff Wilcox, another important chip architect, is leaving the company. Instead of direct competition, however, Wilcox is switching to Intel.
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