ARM Plays Down Apple Acquisition Rumours

If Apple-related rumors were bad news for Samsung at the start of the week, for chip designer ARM Holdings they worked to drive stock prices up.

Rumors that Apple may be considering purchasing ARM—which currently makes chips for the Apple iPhone—drove ARM stock to an eight-year high, the Guardian reported on 22 April.

Responding to the rumors, ARM executives argued that given the current relationship between the companies, there wasn’t any need for Apple to front the money for an acquisition.
 
”Exciting though it is to have the share price pushed up by these rumors,” ARM CEO Warren East told the Guardian, “common sense tells us that our standard business model is an excellent way for technology companies to gain access to our technology. Nobody has to buy the company.”

Nobody Has To Buy ARM

On 19 April, the Korea Times reported that Apple planned to make its own application processors, or APs, for the next generation of iPhones. 
Quoting a “high-ranking industry executive,” the paper reported: “iPhones have been using Samsung Electronics-produced APs that were partially designed by Apple engineers. But Apple has decided to use its own AP for its 4G models.”

If Apple does indeed have such plans, it’s likely that PA Semi, the processor-design company that Apple purchased in 2008, would make the processors.

In June Apple is expected to refresh the iPhone 3G S currently offered in the United States by AT&T, and rumors suggest that Apple may also be at work on a CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access)-based version for Verizon Wireless, once AT&T’s exclusivity contract expires. Verizon’s CEO has reportedly suggested that the company would like a 4G version, compatible with its planned LTE technology, but that decision is up to Apple.

The “4G model” referred to by the Korea Times may have shown its face in public sooner than Apple intended. In mid-April, an Apple engineer reportedly left a mobile device in a German beer garden north of San Jose, Calif. The device was quickly sold to tech site Gizmodo, which posted photos of the alleged iPhone 4G.