Apple’s no stranger to slurping up privately-held chipmakers. After all, their 2007 acquisition of PA Semi led to the iPad’s blindingly fast A4 CPU, and Cupertino’s going to need to stay on the cusp of mobile chip development if it wants to keep the iPad and iPhone competitive over the course of the next few years.
In light of all that, the latest rumor being reported by TUAW about Apple’s acquisition of chipmaker Intrinsity has the ring of likelihood (if not necessarily truth) about it. After all, Intrinsity is the company that helped design the Samsung Cortex A8 core, one of the fastest mobile processors there is and one of the few that competes with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon.
If Apple wants to keep their mobile phones on the bleeding edge, an investment in Intrinsity makes a lot of sense. I guess we’ll just have to see what Thursday’s press conference has in store.
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.
