Philip Houska "If the given matter does not contradict the laws of physics, then it means that it is difficult, but doable," is the motto of one of the most important managers of Apple, which, however, is not talked about much. Johny Srouji, who is behind the development of his own chips and has been a member of Apple's top management since last December, is the person who makes iPhones and iPads have some of the best processors in the world.
Johny Srouji, originally from Israel, is Apple's senior vice president of hardware technology, and his main focus is the processors that he and his team develop for iPhones, iPads, and now also for the Watch and Apple TV. He is certainly no newcomer to the field, as evidenced by his presence at Intel, where he headed in 1993, leaving IBM (to which he returned again in 2005), where he worked on decentralized systems. At Intel, or rather at the company's laboratory in his hometown of Haifa, he was in charge of creating methods that tested the power of semiconductor models using certain simulations.
Srouji officially joined Apple in 2008, but we need to look a little further into history. The key was the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007. The then CEO Steve Jobs was aware that the first generation had many "flies", many of them due to a weak processor and the assembly of components from different suppliers.
"Steve came to the conclusion that the only way to make a truly unique and great device was to make his own silicon semiconductor," Srouji said in an interview with Bloomberg. It was at that time that Srouji slowly came onto the scene. Bob Mansfield, head of all hardware at the time, spotted the talented Israeli and promised him the opportunity to create a new product from the ground up. Hearing this, Srouji left IBM.
The engineering team that Srouji joined in 2008 had only 40 members when he joined. Another 150 workers, whose mission was the creation of integrated chips, were acquired in April of the same year after Apple bought a start-up dealing with more economical models of semiconductor systems, PA Semi. This acquisition was crucial and marked a noticeable advance for the "chip" division under Srouji's command. Among other things, this was reflected in the immediate intensification of interaction between different departments, from software programmers to industrial designers.
The first crucial moment for Srouji and his team was the implementation of a modified ARM chip in the first generation of iPad and iPhone 4 in 2010. The chip marked A4 was the first to handle the demands of the Retina display, which the iPhone 4 had. Since then, a number of "A" chips constantly expands and noticeably improves.
The year 2012 was also groundbreaking from this point of view, when Srouji, with the help of its engineers, created specific A5X and A6X chips for the third generation iPad. Thanks to the improved form of chips from iPhones, the Retina display was also able to get onto apple tablets, and only then did the competition start to take an interest in Apple's own processors. Apple definitely wiped everyone's eyes a year later, in 2013, when it showed a 64-bit version of the A7 chip, something unheard of in mobile devices at the time, since 32 bits were the standard.
Thanks to the 64-bit processor, Srouji and his colleagues had the opportunity to implement functions such as Touch ID and later Apple Pay into the iPhone, and it was also a fundamental shift for developers who could create better and smoother games and applications.
The work of Srouji's division has been admirable from the start, because while most competitors rely on third-party components, Apple saw years earlier that it would be most efficient to start designing its own chips. That's why they have one of the best and most advanced laboratories for the development of silicon semiconductors in Apple, to which even the biggest competitors, Qualcomm and Intel, can look with admiration and at the same time with concern.
Perhaps the most difficult task during his time in Cupertino, however, was given to Johny Srouji last year. Apple was about to release the large iPad Pro, a new addition to its tablet lineup, but it was delayed. Plans to release the iPad Pro in the spring of 2015 fell through because the software, hardware, and upcoming Pencil accessory were not ready. For many divisions, this meant more time for their iPad Pro work, but for Srouji, it meant quite the opposite – his team started a race against time.
The original plan was that the iPad Pro would arrive on the market in the spring with the A8X chip, which had the iPad Air 2 and was then the most powerful in Apple's offer. But when the release moved to autumn, the iPad Pro met at the keynote with new iPhones and thus also a new generation of processors. And that was a problem, because at that time Apple could not afford to come up with a year-old processor for its large iPad, which it aimed at the corporate sphere and demanding users.
In just half a year – in a time-critical mode – the engineers under Srouji's leadership created the A9X processor, thanks to which they were able to fit 5,6 million pixels into the almost thirteen-inch screen of the iPad Pro. For his efforts and determination, Johny Srouji was very generously rewarded last December. In the role of senior vice president of hardware technologies, he reached the top management of Apple and at the same time he acquired 90 company shares. For today's Apple, whose revenue is almost 70 percent from iPhones, are Srouji's abilities quite key.
