What's behind Apple's P.A. Semi purchase

your iPhone or a future ultra-mobile 'Book. However, do look for contributions by members of the team that created it to appear in Apple's relationship with Intel and other component suppliers. As Apple has proven in the past with other acquisitions such as Silicon Color and Proximity, it's the engineers that count. In those two deals, for example, Apple added resources that resulted in Final Cut Studio 2's Color and Final Cut Server.

It's a safe bet that P.A. Semi's engineers won't be adapting the PWRficient for use in future Apple products. As Bajarin said, they instead "will serve as a specialized unit that works with third party vendors like Intel to make their chips more customized, especially when this is important to industrial design." To us, that sounds well worth $278 million.

[Rik Myslewski has been writing about the Mac since 1989. He has been editor in chief of MacAddict (now Mac|Life), executive editor of MacUser and director of MacUser Labs, and executive producer of Macworld Live.]