Apple to acquire chip maker Dialog’s 300 engineers, tech for $600 Mn

Apple is entering its largest acquisition in terms of the number of employees. The iPhone manufacturer will be paying a total of $600 Mn to Dialog, the company that makes Apple's chips, to get tech and 300 engineers.

Out of the $600 Mn, half of the amount will be a cash payment and the rest $300 Mn will be in the form of a prepayment for Dialog products for the next three years. Apple’s move to rope in expert engineers who have been working on creating the chips that keep their iPhones running is a major step towards becoming a sophisticated chip producer. 

Apple will also be taking up Dialog offices in Italy, the UK and Germany.

These new engineers who will now become Apple employees under Johny Srouji, Apple’s Senior  Vice President of Hardware technologies, will be instrumental in helping Apple build more efficient chips in-house.

“Dialog has deep expertise in chip development, and we are thrilled to have this talented group of engineers who’ve long supported our products now working directly for Apple,” Srouji said.

The Dialog employees--turned Apple engineers are the same people who have been working on  Apple products from the beginning. The new employees already possess the required knowledge about the product that they would be working on. Moreover, they bring in a different level of skill set to the Apple team.

Dialog has been making chips that keep up the phone’s battery life from the time of early iPhones, Srouji said. The partnership which involves not just an exchange of tech but also of valuable human capital, is crucial for Apple’s journey ahead.

The remaining employees who will be working under the Dialog umbrella, will focus on Internet of Things, mobile, automotive, computing and storage markets. The acquisition will boost Dialog’s ability to expand its investments in innovation.