Apple hires engineers from Dialog

Apple has struck a deal with Dialog Semiconductor which will see it buying a portion of the company and hiring 300 of its computer chip engineers.

Described by Dialog as an asset transfer and licensing deal, the $300m agreement will see some of the Reading-based company's patents and facilities transferred to Apple. In terms of headcount it represents one of the biggest takeovers made by Apple, to date.

Apple has long used Dialog's products to monitor and control power consumption in its iPhones and iPads and the two have had a relationship that stretches back to the very first iPhones.

Commenting, the Apple's hardware technologies chief, Johny Srouji, said, "Dialog has deep expertise in chip development and we are thrilled to have this talented group of engineers who have long supported our products now working directly for Apple.”

The deal will affect Dialog staff in Swindon, Italy and Germany.

At the end of last year, rumours had emerged that Apple was looking to phase out use of Dialog's components, but it has now revealed that it has pre-paid Dialog a further $300m to secure products from it over the next three years.

Dialog said it expected the deal would be completed within the first six months of 2019 and post the deal the company said that it would be focusing on IoT as a provider of custom and configurable mixed-signal integrated circuit chips.