Apple has shocked people in the technology world today by buying P.A. Semi for $278 million.
For those of you who are not already aware, P.A. Semi is a fabless chip designer, one that specializes in low power PowerPC processors.
Computer World reports that:
P.A. Semi was in the running as Apple's processor of choice three years ago when Apple was making a decision between PowerPCs from P.A. Semi and IBM or Intel x86. Apple obviously chose Intel but P.A. did offer a compelling choice at the time - but wasn't perhaps tested enough.
There is also the issue of how the founder of P.A. Semi has a history of designing StrongARM chips, which are used in many of our most popular mobile devices including the iPod Touch and iPhone.
Now that Apple has decided to buy this microprocessor chip company, we wonder if it was a great idea, as it is rather hard to see Apple embracing their power-based 64-bit PWRficient processors. Maybe this means that Apple will be switching back to the PowerPC processors.
This comes as quite a surprise to many of us but it does seem to appear that Apple will be heading down the two platform road. We will definitely keep you updated on this.
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