iPad A4 Chip Creator, Intrinsity, Gets Purchased by Apple

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Intrinsity happens to be a small chip company based in Austin Texas which is believed to be responsible at least in part for the iPad “brain”. The company has previously worked together with Samsung but now Apple has decided to purchase it.

According to Tom R. Halfhill, an analyst with Microprocessor Report, Apple paid $121 million for this acquisition but that’s just pocket change for Apple, especially at this point in time when their products are selling like hot cakes in various worldwide markets.

Apple was not willing to officially comment on the matter but then they rarely are:

Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we do not comment on our purpose or plans.

Intrinsity also failed to comment and the official web page of the company is currently unavailable. But according to some of Intrinsity’s employees Apple did buy their company. No, they didn’t officially comment but they did update their LinkedIn profiles which now show Apple as their employer. Social networking sites, can’t live with them, can’t live without them!

Just last week we heard rumors saying that Apple was preparing to buy ARM. But that hasn’t happen yet and it might never will. Since now we know that Apple has purchased Intrinsity we can only assume that they’re not that interested in ARM at this point or that the whole rumor was meant to throw everyone off what was actually happening.

Intrinsity’s Hummingbird product is now believed to be the “main computational engine behind the A4.” The A4 is of course the chip that brings the iPad to life and we can only assume that similar versions of it will power the next-gen iPhone and iPod touch. So far despite any reasons against purchasing the iPad many people have been pleasantly surprised by the responsiveness of the iPad when it comes to performing various tasks and Apple should better invest even more of its current cash reserves on building even better chips for its products.