A Friday announcement from Cisco Systems revealed that the former Apple executive Mark Papermaster has been hired by the company; and will oversee the creation of chips for Cisco's networking switches.

Papermaster, who joined Apple in 2008, headed up the company's iPhone and iPod unit, and was in charge of design and engineering for the iPhone 4, before his ouster in August. His departure was largely a result of the iPhone
4's much-talked-about "antennagate" fiasco.

According to court documents, Apple VP Mark Mansfeld suggested Papermaster's name as a "long shot" for the iPhone and iPod position. Papermaster was actually a secondary pick during Apple's year-long search for a substitution for `iPod father' Tony Fadell.

Prior to joining Apple, the 49-year-old Papermaster was earlier working with IBM, where he was the vice president of microprocessor technology development. In fact, when Apple hired Papermaster, IBM promptly responded by filing a lawsuit alleging that Papermaster was in violation of his non-compete agreement. Later, however, IBM and Apple worked out a settlement which required Papermaster to check in with IBM regularly to notify them that no confidential information had been revealed by him to Apple.

Going by a Wall Street Journal report, Papermaster joined Cisco on Monday as the VP of the company's silicon switching technology group; and will report to John McCool, the chief of the data center, switching, and services group of the company.