Rivals will be remain rivals-- according to the Wall Street Journal, Apple just managed to poach top chip designer Jim Mergard from the Samsung ranks.
Mergard is a 16-year AMD veteran, where he was VP and chief engineer before leaving for Samsung. He was one of the leads behind "Brazos," a high-end AMD chip development aiming at portable PC use.
“We are looking for the best and brightest chip heads…” a post from an Apple employee on LinkedIn says.
Judging from the bitter the Apple-Samsung rivalry (one culminating a patent infringement suit worth $1 billion), the hiring sounds less like simple headhunting and more like throwing salt at not-too-old wounds.
At Apple Mergard will surely work on the next generation of iDevice processor. Following that, Apple will have to produce the silicon... with its biggest partner, Samsung.