Did Apple invest in P.A. Semi prior to acquisition?

Peter Clarke, EE Times
(05/06/2008 8:53 AM EDT)

LONDON — Word on the street is that there is still a little more light to be shed on the saga of P.A. Semi and Apple.

Readers will remember that the news broke that Apple had acquired PA Semi for $278 million in cash on April 23.

Subsequently a source has said that Apple was an investor in P.A.Semi prior to the acquisition. I haven't been able to find anything in the public domain about this but strategic investors sometimes prefer to go unlisted. This does make some sense as a relationship was known to exist between the two companies and it had been reported elsewhere that Apple considered buying P.A.Semi in 2005.

This was at the time Apple rejected the PowerPC and went with Intel and its expertly manufactured x86 processors to run its computers. This was bad news for P.A.Semi, which was working with a PowerPC architectural license — Apple's previous processor architecture of choice — and the change at Apple put P.A. Semi in a difficult place.

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