Apple may build its own iPhone chips

Apple may be set to produce its own ARM chips for the iPhone 3G

Apple may be planning to build its own ARM chips to power future iPhone and iPod devices.

Reports in The New York Times suggest that the company may be developing an in-house chip based on the ARM architecture that could be fine-tuned to work with the phones and media players.

Apple is currently believed to use ARM chips powered by Samsung.

The report stems from the social networking profile of a key Apple engineer. Senior manager Wei-han Lien noted in a posting to his LinkedIn profile that he was overseeing an ARM architecture team for the iPhone.

Lien joined Apple earlier this year when the company purchased chipmaker PA Semi for $278m. Apple chief executive Steve Jobs stated at the time that the acquisition was made to build a new processor for the iPhone.

If true, Lien's inadvertent leak signals that Apple has settled on staying with the ARM architecture for future iPhone and iPod Touch models.

Chipmakers license the ARM architecture primarily for use in mobile phones and embedded devices from ARM Holdings, a UK company whose 1990 launch was partly backed by Apple.