P.A. Semi Chief Leaves Apple for Agnilux

P.A. Semi Founder and Manager Dan Dobberpuhl, who used to work at Apple since the company’s acquisition by the Mac maker, two years ago, has decided to start his own business, leaving the Coupertino, California-based, company.

When P.A. Semi became part of Steve Jobs’ company, two years ago, Softpedia noted the main details of this acquisition in two articles. RoughlyDrafted, quoted in a Softpedia piece, related that an EETimes report "flatly reiterated that 'PA Semi customers were told the acquiring company was not interested in the startup's products or road map, but is buying the company for its intellectual property and engineering talent.' Apple's acquisition target isn't a chip manufacturer. As a 'fabless' chip designer, PA Semi (short for Palo Alto Semiconductor) only develops chip designs that are actually built by other companies."

Today, several sources claim that Dan Dobberpuhl has now joined Amarijt Gill, a former director at P.A. Semi, in San Jose for a new business plan called Agnilux. This is one of the several departures from Apple having taken place since April 2008, when Jobs’s company purchased the 150-employee chip design firm for $278 million in cash, according to Forbes and also quoted by Softpedia. The intention Apple had in mind, at the time, was to design a proprietary chip technology for its mobile computing initiatives, like the iPhone, iPod and iPad.

According to the Linkedln job networking site, at least six former P.A. Semi engineers are thought to have left Apple and joined the new company, Agnilux, a piece of information that New York Times also includes. Agnilux is a company co-founded by Mark Hayter, one of P.A. Semi’s main system architects, who, surprisingly or not, was also an Apple employee. He left the Cupertino, Calif. giant shortly after the acquisition.

"Neither Mr. Hayter nor other onetime PA workers who left Apple for Agnilux were willing to discuss either company’s plans," the New York Times reported. "According to two people with knowledge of the two companies, who were unwilling to be named because the matter is delicate, some PA engineers left Apple a few months after the acquisition because they were given grants of Apple stock at an unattractive price."

Liney Gwennnap, the president and principal analyst of The Linley Group, has suggested that this situation is due to the fact that Apple has a very strong badge and these individuals were "start-up kind of people" who have been in danger of limiting themselves inside a giant corporation like Apple.