Is Intrinsity Apple's latest chipmaker acquisition?
By Donald Melanson 
posted April 3rd 2010 4:59PM
posted April 3rd 2010 4:59PM
This one's still strictly in the realm of rumor for the time being, but there's a growing amount evidence cropping up suggesting that Apple may have acquired another processor design firm. The company in question this time is Austin-based Intrinsity, which specializes in ARM processors, and has suddenly seen its website replaced with an old school "under construction" image -- supposedly due to "scheduled maintenance." That wouldn't be much to go on by itself, of course, but EDN is reporting that it has a "solid rumor" that Intrinsity has indeed been sold, and a number of Intrinsity employees have apparently already changed their current employer status on LinkedIn to Apple only to promptly change it back. There's even some speculation that Intrinsity may have actually contributed as much or more to the A4 processor in the iPad than P.A. Semi has, although any confirmation of that will likely have to wait until an official announcement -- if there's one to come at all, that is.
"Proprietary"
@_@
@n0ne Yes, most chips are proprietary. Unless Intel released some open-source type designs ala Arduino.
@n0ne I hope they treat you well at your "special needs" school... Your comment deserves the King of Stupid award.
@Nitesh here is a way for it to have even more meaning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE-1RPDqJAY
@Nitesh This post doesn't deserve worth full discussion anyways.
... D'oh!
@Vaio
my god, i have no idea what to do here.
Apple needs a cheap maker. Not a chip maker
@staticjethro They have cheap makers, thats how they keep their profit margins so high, in tandem with the "Apple Tax" (which I pay).
@staticjethro
fuck!
@swanle
Well, we have to be fair here.
Their coverage, while parts are eye-rolling, hasn't been obnoxious especially for what is, in the U.S., a major holiday weekend when little else is actually going on.
And they have demonstrated, in the case of WP(-S)7, that they are now willing to give the same blanket coverage of other companies products.
@swanle
cute, reminds me on my little brother... But hold on, has anybody complained when WP7S was introduced and every news was about Marketplace, missing features and so on... Today was the first day to buy an iPad, and Engadget had to to these tests, so these news were produced. And now, Apple buys a chipmaker.... And you blame Engadget for this?
@topic...
if there's someone who can speak german, here's something more about this deal: http://www.maclife.de/iphone-ipod/ipad/hat-apple-eine-weitere-prozessorschmiede-uebernommen
Some of the employees of Intrinsity set their LinkedIn Profiles to "Employer: Apple" for a few hours...
@Vaio
Well I'm not a d1ck, but DEFINITELY A DICK!!!! But unfortunately I partially agree with you, therefore I will uprank you.
I swear we need to change the name of this place to All things Apple, Google and Microsoft could merge and Engadget wouldn't give it the type of coverage the iPad or Apple gets. Is there a way to disable Apple stories from my Android's engadget app?
@n0ne
I hope this chip doesn't overheat like iPad's current chip
http://i40.tinypic.com/ojfp6t.jpg
@chrisrottan
fake, freak.
@hardluckstories
HAHA no
http://blog.iphone-dev.org/
Iphone dev team member -> pumpkin
Twitter username -> copumpkin
http://twitter.com/copumpkin
@papplay
Congrats! Now, to down rank you...
So since PA Semi was supposed to be Apple's in house chip firm and it turns out Intrinsity designed/helped with the chip, does this mean PA Semi isn't up to the task?
@ronamadeo No. What it means is that they acquired PA Semi, brought all those people on board, and then most of them, including the lead designer, ditched. They have set up a new ARM fabless design company. So Apple buys this established ARM fabless design company and hopes to keep one or two of the employees. Rinse and repeat, over and over. Crimson and clover.
@Bosco Of course they did get IP for P.A.Semi.
too much apple news...dammit.
@RidEtHeLiGhTNiNg They launched a major new software platform. What do you expect. If WIndows 8 came out, I'm sure there would be a lot of coverage too.
Engadget, you need to make a separate section with your apple news. It's seriously getting annoying dealing with all the fanboys. You guys already have engadget HD, engadget mobile and so on... You can keep your mainsite to breaking news from apple, but we don't need every little detail you find out about apple. Keep it to a different part of your site, please.
@Skwidwerd
T U A W
@Skwidwerd
Here, let me help.
http://www.engadget.com/exclude/Apple
@LAY
To be fair,
I'd rather browse engadget than Gizmodo. Engadget is somewhat impartial but Gizmodo will ban you if you dare say something bad about apple products or AT&T(unless you have a star)
@chrisrottan That's not true. You just have to say something intelligent. My virulent anti-Apple comments get promoted there all the time, and get lots of very thoughtful replies too.
@Bosco
I corrected Matt Buchaman in one of his articles and he banned me from posting. But before that, I got my star got removed when I said the iSlate(back before anyone knew the name) would not multitask.
@Bosco Ted Kazinski can post on Engadget or Gizmodo? I thought they had you in SuperMax.
@chrisrottan The little shit Frucci banned me for who knows what. No explanation. I don't believe I had posted something ban-worthy.
all I want is the Joo Joo to get all this attention. I know that engadget probably had the ipad for a couple of days and they are just now posting there reviews but come next week I want the joo joo to have the same type of reviews as this waste of money product that apple has built.
@rowehc Well, the best thing you could do then is order a JooJoo and post in the comments about it! On paper, it looks like a very nice device for couch surfing. By contrast, iPad without Flash doesn't really look up to couch surfing anything interesting. But with apps and iBooks, looks like it might be wonderful for a myriad of things. Apple has flung a lot of crap at the wall and is hoping something sticks. But the JooJoo looks like an FTW if you just need browser and media player.
@rowehc
Are you one of the 90 that pre ordered it?
@rowehc Why don't you just start your own blog and post all the JooJoo articles your little butt-hurt self desires?
Intrinsity had been working with Samsung. Of course Samsung hasn't been releasing iPads lately. But this would be a smart acquisition for any company.
@Mustafa
http://spectrum.ieee.org/computing/hardware/winner-intrinsitys-more-cerebral-cortex
Maybe they're optimising a A9-Cortex for Apple.
apple this!! apple that!! this is really getting annoying...can someone give me that apple free link please??..i think i really need to use it now...i gave up.
Is it by force to read Apple news?
Is Intrinsity Apple's latest chipmaker acquisition?
Well good on them, hefty bonus coming up with Ipad seen to be selling like hotcakes
@Delirium Trigah Yep. I just saw an estimate. 700,000 in the first day.
@4nNtt I remember a couple of years or so an apple employee mentioned apple giving bonuses across the board. Who wouldn't want to be part of apple these days?!
@4nNtt I remember a couple of years or so with the iphone, an apple employee mentioned apple giving bonuses across the board. Who wouldn't want to be part of apple these days?!
Why? Oh, why would they hide this? If they have completed the transaction, then who cares if they bout another ARM design company?..