Apple Lossless Audio CODEC (ALAC), took a new step towards independence from Samsung by buying a factory dedicated to the manufacture of semiconductors for mobile terminals or tablets, the purchase costing the company 18.2 million dollars.
With a total area of over 20.000 m², the factory in the north of San Jose was used in the past by the company Maxim Integrated Products to produce semiconductors, and those in Cupertino will most likely use it for exactly the same purpose.
In location Maxim Integrated Products tested products that were going to be sold to various global partners, they could also produce there a limited number of units for testing in a large number of products, the factory being built in 1997 by Samsung.
Although the former Maxim Integrated Products factory is capable of producing a large number of semiconductors, its dimensions do not suggest the idea that Apple could make anything other than components for the iDevices it is testing for market launch.
It's pretty small for a fab," he said Dean Freeman, research VP at Gartner, where he leads the Internet of Things Center of Excellence. "The only thing I can think that they would be doing is potentially saying, 'OK, we need to do some prototyping in some way or form.' Or they want a clean-room space to do some tweaky development. This isn't big enough to do anything (production-wise).
Although Samsung used that factory in the past and gave it up, the Korean company has another similar factory located just a few streets away from the one purchased by Apple, so the two companies are neighbors and some Samsung engineers could find a new job at Apple.
A few tens of minutes ago I told you that Apple also opened a laboratory in Taiwan to develop new screens dedicated to iDevices, those from Cupertino being very determined to control the entire aspect of the production of components dedicated to their own products.
