The dark satanic rumour mill is turning over Apple's surprise move to buy a processor designer called PA Semi.

PA Semi is only famous for using Power architecture, something that Apple has moved away from in 2006 in favor of nice new chips from Intel. The move was not cheap. It cost Apple $278 million for an outfit that has 150 employees and was founded in 2003. PA Semi's number one product is the PA6T-1682M, a low-power, 64-bit, dual-core chip that features two memory controllers and 2MB of L2 cache.

However, it makes observers wonder what Apple wants with the chip if it is so happy with Intel. There are all sorts of uses for PA Semi technology in Apple's portfolio. High-end iPhones, iPods and tablets can all see a use of what it has to offer. It is also a huge snub for Intel's Atom Processor, which many people thought would end up as Apple's ultra-portable chip.

The move is a U-Turn for the fruit themed outfit. When PA Semi first announced its chip, everyone saw it as a power effective way of getting Apple out of the G4 era. Apple changed its mind and went for Intel, but now power has again become an issue in PC design it seems that Job's Mob has back tracked.

However it is also possible that the move into less proprietary chips has caused Apple more headaches than the closed shop wants. Jobs' Mob move to Intel has bought with it the possibility of Windows PCs, something that the outfit cannot control so well. There is another dark theory.

The first is that PA Semi was going to do extremely well if Apple had taken its technology in the first place. However, with Apple moving to Intel for a while it effectively gutted PA Semi's business plan and kept the price of the company low. It then buys the company at a cut down price, it then dumps Intel and switches to its own technology.

More here.