Apple takes over 300 engineers from semiconductor company, Dialog

Handset maker, Apple has taken 300 computer chip engineers from a British semiconductor maker, Dialog.

Apple added the workers to its team after striking a deal to hire them from one of its British suppliers.

The US company is paying Dialog Semiconductor $300m (£227m) for the acquisition, which also includes some of the Reading-based company’s patents and facilities.

Apple has been using Dialog’s products to monitor and control power consumption in its iPhones and iPads.

Reports say the deal represents one of Apple’s biggest takeovers in headcount terms.

Apple’s technology chief, Johny Srouji says about the deal: “Dialog has deep expertise in chip development and we are thrilled to have this talented group of engineers who have long supported our products now working directly for Apple.”

The Staff acquired by Apple are based Swindon, Livorno, Italy, Nabern, Germany and Neuaubing, Germany.

Read also: Amazon’s AI recruitment tool dumped for being bias against women

The Californian company already designs its own computer processing units (CPUs) and last year announced it was ending a partnership with another UK company, Imagination Technologies, to create its own in-house graphics processing units.

Reports had it last year that Apple planned to phase out use of Dialog’s components. This caused Dialog’s shares to tumble 20%.

Apple however announced it has pre-paid Dialog a further $300m to secure products from it over the next three years.

Speaking on the headcount acquisition, an expert noted that Apple had a reputation for liking to be in control.

“In the industry this kind of move is known as being more vertically integrated,” said Ian Cutress, senior editor at the engineering-focused news site AnandTech.

“It’s something that’s already true of Samsung and its smartphones – for example it also makes its own displays.

“The benefits for Apple having full control at the component level should be lower overheads and therefore reduced costs.

“But a downside could be there’s less fallback if something goes wrong.”

Dialog said it expected the deal would be completed within the first six months of 2019.

Its shares have risen more than 26% following the announcement this morning

 

RipplesNigeria… without borders, without fears

Click here to join the Ripples Nigeria WhatsApp group for latest updates.

Join the conversation

Opinions

Support Ripples Nigeria, hold up solutions journalism

Balanced, fearless journalism driven by data comes at huge financial costs.

As a media platform, we hold leadership accountable and will not trade the right to press freedom and free speech for a piece of cake.

If you like what we do, and are ready to uphold solutions journalism, kindly donate to the Ripples Nigeria cause.

Your support would help to ensure that citizens and institutions continue to have free access to credible and reliable information for societal development.

Donate Now