AppleInsider StaffAn Apple spokesman confirmed Tuesday evening that the company has agreed purchase a boutique microprocessor design company known for sophisticated but low-power designs, Forbes is reporting.
"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not comment on our purposes and plans," said Apple spokesman Steve Dowling. He declined to go into the specifics of the agreement, but a person familiar with the matter speaking to Forbes said the deal would consist of a $278 million cash transaction.
Both Apple chief executive Steve Jobs and Apple iPod chief Tony Fadell are said to have been instrumental in the deal, which included negotiations that took place at Jobs' home in Palo Alto, Calif.
Forbes speculates that move on Apple's part is a strategic one aimed at assuring it can continue to differentiate its next-generation handheld products amongst a growing fleet of competitors, many of which may choose to base their designs around Intel's widely available offerings.
P.A. Semi was founded in 2003 by Dan Dobberpuhl, who was among the lead designers for the Alpha and StrongARM microprocessors put forth by Digital Equipment in the 1990s, according to the report.
In February 2007 the chip maker released a 64-bit dual core processor which it claimed was 300 percent more efficient than any comparable offerings, consuming only 5 to 13 watts while running at 2 gigahertz.
The efficiency of mobile processors has been of particular concern for Apple, particularly as it embarks in new business directions such as mobile phones where battery life is critical. As such, the power savings offered by P.A. Semi's designs may have been amongst the firm's most compelling assets in Apple's eyes.
In a report published Monday by Lehman Brothers, analyst Ben Reitzes cited sources in saying that Intel’s Atom chip (Silverthorne) may have failed to produce the kind of battery life that that Apple was seeking for its ultra-portable designs.
Apple is expected to formally announce its acquisition of P.A. Semi during this afternoon's quarterly earnings call, of which AppleInsider will provide its usual coverage.
Charles Martin
Christine McKee
Oliver Haslam
90 Comments
Just to be clear before the rumors go crazy....
This is NOT because of iPhones & iPods (could be an extra reason)
This is NOT for desktop macs (mostly)
This IS for new computing device, aka the "tablet pda" style device that has long been rumored.
At least this is what I've heard.
I was told "think knowledge navigator + iphone + crack = "
The possible uses are more than just the new device, but the purchase is for that reason alone, not to power some iphones.
Oh my....
The PPC days are gone, but I think it was this company that was trying to sell a dual core 2 GHz mobile PPC chip, before Apple switched to Intel. The article seemed to describe it without saying what the chip type was.
As you can see this company is based on Power architecture license from IBM...
Technology Partners
IBM Power Architecture Agreement
PWRficient??a low-power, high-performance, 64-bit family of single-chip processors-was developed by P.A. Semi under a Power Architecture license from IBM. Under the agreement, P.A. Semi has licensed the rights to design, manufacture, and sell processors that fully comply with current and future versions of the Power Architecture. Starting from this instruction set, P.A. Semi has created its own new microarchitecture from scratch?the PA6T core. P.A. Semi has leveraged its skills, proprietary methodologies, and patent-pending low-power technology to derive unprecedented performance per watt from the PWRficient? processor?as much as a tenfold increase over competing processing platforms.
Under the agreement with IBM, P.A. Semi will design, manufacture, and sell PWRficient? chips based on current and future versions of the Power Architecture.
The Power-based microprocessor market is vibrant, diverse, and growing. According to The Linley Group, 2005 shipments of Power microprocessorsI were in the region of $1.4 billion and are forecast to grow by more than 60 percent, to $3.8 billion, in 2007. Uniquely, Power processor solutions span multiple markets -from high-end supercomputers and gaming consoles to high-volume microcontrollers and servers.
P.A. Semi is a founding member of Power.org, whose mission is to develop, enable, and promote Power Architecture technology as the preferred open-standard hardware-development platform.
Sounds like a well thought out acquisition. They seem to be more frugal than other technology companies of similar size, but it seems they spend their money more intelligently.