Intrinisty staff join Apple en masse

Several clues have surfaced that suggest processor design house Intrinsity may have been acquired by Apple. At least 13 engineers at the company, such as Mark Nodine, have either changed their LinkedIn profiles to reflect work at Apple as of April or have said they were starting work as of Thursday. Jim Blomgren is known to have posted the status only to retract it later as a possible hint that Apple may not approve of some of the early status changes.

Rumors have also surfaced that Apple has bought Intrinsity and that the news would become public as soon as this weekend, although neither of the involved companies has volunteered to confirm the details. The company's home page is unusually listed as "under construction."

A buyout of Intrinsity could be a potential coup for Apple in the mobile space due to the former's expertise. It's best known for adding custom logic and optimizations to the Samsung Hummingbird, a 1GHz ARM Cortex-A8 processor intended for fast smartphones like the Galaxy S. Intrinsity's efforts help keep the chip running at full speed even at the minimum acceptable power level.

While any developments would more likely use the A9, an acquisition could be a coup for Apple as it would give it further opportunities to improve performance beyond what was learned from PA Semi. It would also deprive Samsung of using Intrinsity's experience for any future processors that find their way into phones either from Samsung itself or one of its partners. [via MacRumors]

By Electronista Staff

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industry, Samsung, ARM, PA Semi, Apple, Intrinsity, Hummingbird