Apple Inc Acquired the San Jose Chip Making Plant for $18.2 Million

The Maxim semiconductor products manufacturing plant in North San Jose was recently purchased by the Apple Inc. for $18.2 Million. It is said that Maxim bought the plant from Samsung in the year 1997 when it was into the business of consumer electric. This space was shut down by Maxim as it was very small and was right for small volume manufacturing.

The Business Insider report suggests, the 70,000-square foot facility was purchased by Apple Inc. from chipmaker Maxim Integrated Products last week. The facility includes chip manufacturing tools and is located near Samsung Semiconductor. It is one of the main manufacturers for Apple's A9 processor, the chip at the heart of the iPhone.

The original chips are manufactured by TSMC and Samsung. Apple is behind the designing of the processor that is used in its iPads, iPhones and Watch chips. As the newly purchased facility is small for big volume productions, it is likely that the new chip design can be tweaked and tested in such exceptional miniature scale "fabs".

According to the 9to5Mac report, "It's pretty small for a fab," 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 be 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)."

The decision to buy the North San Jose property by Apple Inc. is still not known. Apple may install advanced and enhanced equipment to improve the facilities. It is also likely that Apple wishes to test new improved chips in the recently purchased facility apart from its existing line of processors.

Brian Blau covers the Apple for Gartner. "Apple is a huge company, and we know Apple is going to be investing in a lot of products over the next 20 years," Blau said. "These kind of investments I think are very long term", reported the Biz Journals news.

In the month of August, the 43-acre developmental plot was purchased by Apple Inc. in San Jose for around $138 million. The company will also be opening the new Campus 2 Apple Headquarter in the coming year which is being developed in Cupertino. The company perhaps is looking forward to expanding its pre-manufacturing, product development, and prototyping potentials.