About a year after it acquired 150-person PA Semi for $278 million, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) is beefing up the ranks of its low-power chip designer and
may start designing its own computer chips to protect its interests from rivals.
It would certainly help defend against projects such as
OSx86, where hackers grab Apple software and make it work for PCs, creating an item dubbed the "Hackintosh."
The Wall Street Journal says people familiar with Apple's plans don't expect internally designed chips to emerge until next year at the earliest. The report also said Apple participated in a job fair earlier this month for soon-to-be-unemployed engineers at memory chip company Spansion Inc., which sought
bankruptcy protection in March.
Why all the new speculation about Apple designing chips -- well, it
grabbed two big guns of the industry. Apple recently hired Bob Drebin and Raja Koduri, who both were chief technology officers of Advanced Micro Devices Inc.'s (NYSE:AMD) graphics products group.
USA Today noted
we shouldn't expect Apple to build a giant chip factory, called a fab -- they cost billions. Instead, the Cupertino, Calif., company would likely design the chips, then outsource their manufacture to a for-hire chipmaker, such as TSMC or UMC.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. is the world's largest contract chipmaker. And No. 2 contractor, Taiwan's United Microelectronics Corp., said on Thursday it will
acquire an 85% stake in Chinese semiconductor OEM Hejian Technology (Suzhou) Co. Ltd. for about $285 million. -
Baz HiralalGo to the story
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