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Apple buys PA Semi, shocks industry

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CIOL Bureau
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CUPERTINO, USA: According to The Unofficial Apple Web Blog (TUAW), Apple has stunned the industry by acquiring P.A. Semi, a Santa Clara based chip company founded by Dan Dobberpuhl, the former lead designer of the DEC Alpha and StrongARM processors, for US $278 million.

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The Computerworld Blog reported that Apple had 'shocked' everyone with this move. P.A. Semi is a fabless chip designer that specializes in super low power PowerPC processors. It raises questions about Apple's future association with Intel, which has been courting Apple since long to adopt its Atom low-power processor family. It also remains to be seen whether Apple will use these super low power PowerPC processors in embedded devices, such as high end iPhones, iPods, etc.

More details of this acquisition will follow later.



Meanwhile, Apple has announced its financial results for fiscal 2008 second quarter ended March 29, 2008. The company posted revenue of $7.51 billion and net quarterly profit of $1.05 billion, or $1.16 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $5.26 billion and net quarterly profit of $770 million, or $.87 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 32.9 percent, down from 35.1 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 44 percent of the quarter’s revenue.

Apple shipped 2,289,000 Macintosh computers during the quarter, representing 51 percent unit growth and 54 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. It sold 10,644,000 iPods during the quarter, representing 1 percent unit growth and 8 percent revenue growth over the year-ago quarter. Quarterly iPhone sales were 1,703,000.

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