Apple staffing-up chip hardware lab in Oregon with ex-Intel engineers - report

Apple has set-up a chip design and development office in Intel's back yard, suggest reports

Intel engineers are reportedly being poached by Apple to work at a new chip development lab in Western Portland, Oregon - not far from Intel's own manufacturing, research and development centre in Hillsboro.

The claims, made in the local newspaper, The Oregonian, lend weight to rumours that Apple is planning to shift its Mac desktop and laptop PCs from Intel CPUs to its own in-house developed ARM-based chips in the near future.

It is speculated that the company will make the shift from 2020, with the company unveiling its first Apple/ARM-powered computing hardware next year.

The iPhone maker has already hired close to two-dozen employees to work at the facility, the report claims, including a number who previously held senior research or engineering roles at chipmaker Intel.

The Oregonian claims to have gathered this information from job postings, social media profiles belonging to the poached employees, and a person familiar with the matter.

Apple is said to have started hiring for the roles in November last year, with its job ads calling for "design verification expertise".

Intel, meanwhile, would itself appear to be in the market for a lot of experienced design engineers.

While Apple has remained hush-hush on the plans, the report fuels speculation that the company plans to ditch Intel chips in its MacBooks from 2020 in favour of its own ARM-based chips.

Bloomberg, which reported on the move last month, claims that Apple's first ARM-powered device will be a revised Mac Pro that Apple could show off as early as next year - probably in its autumn 'reveal'.

A new report this week claims that Apple has pulled-in contract manufacturer Pegatron to make an ARM-powered touchscreen gadget that likely will take the form of a MacBook-come-tablet device.

Said to be in the prototype stages, the incoming device will reportedly feature a SIM card slot, GPS, water resistance - and a Mac-based boot system.