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NEW YORK (AP) — Apple Inc. has agreed to buy P.A. Semi Inc., a privately held company that designs power-efficient processors, a spokesman confirmed Wednesday.
The company did not reveal the purchase price, or what it plans to do with P.A. Semi's technology, which could be suitable for power-thrifty devices like laptops or perhaps even the iPhone.
"Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time and we generally do not comment on our purpose or plans," said Apple spokesman Steve Dowling.
The acquisition was first reported by Forbes.com.
P.A. Semi employs 150 people and is based in Santa Clara, Calif. It was founded in 2003 by Dan Dobberpuhl, the lead designer of the DEC Alpha series of processors, which were used in workstations and servers.
Oddly, the company's chips are based on IBM Corp.'s Power architecture, which Apple ditched in 2005. The company's Macintosh computers now run Intel Corp.'s chips.
P.A. Semi said its PWRficient processor has two cores running at 2 gigahertz, comparable to Intel chips, while using a third or a quarter of the power. It's aimed at industrial markets like networking equipment, high-volume storage devices and military applications."
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5j...SCg-AD907PH9O2
Apple agrees to buy processor-design company 
