Apple’s last year acquisition of chip-design company PA Semi was an overt indication of the company’s plan to design exclusive chips for its next-generation iPhone and multi-touch handheld products. Substantiating that news is Apple’s recent hiring of a team of engineers, including two leading ‘chip architects’ - Raja Koduri and Bob Drebin - who have both worked as Chief Technology Officers at AMD.

Though CEO Steve Jobs had also confirmed Apple’s plans of creating system-on-a-chip (SoC) designs for the iPhone and iPods, shortly after the takeover of the 150-employees-strong PA Semi, the plan may not fully materialize before some time next year. 

Going by Wall Street Journal’s Thursday-published report, the Apple endeavor to put together its own team of chip designers would be a rather extensive process; with over 100 people - including veterans of Intel, Qualcomm and Samsung - having listed current Apple job titles on their LinkedIn professional networking profiles.

Sources say that Jobs has asked Apple’s chip designers’ team-in-the-making, to be spearheaded by the PA Semi crew, to craft such chips for Apple's multi-touch devices that will not only deliver highly-developed gaming graphics and specialized features, but also improve battery consumption, and help Apple retain secrecy around its intellectual property.

The Journal said that Jobs “does not want the knowledge about the technology to leave Apple.”