Confirming earlier rumors, the New York Times is reporting that Apple has purchased ARM design firm Intrinsity for an estimated $121 million.
Intrinsity was the company that helped design the Samsung Cortex A8 core, one of the fastest mobile processors out there before the A4 chip, which could only be clocked up to a 650MHz. Sources speaking to the New York Times say that Apple, impressed by theat work, picked up Intrinsity and tasked them with modifying their Cortex A* design to run at 1GHz. The end result is the iPad’s A4 chip.
Apple spokesman Steve Dowling didn’t directly confirm the purchase, but did say that Apple “buys smaller technology companies from time to time.”
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
