Apple has recently turned towards chip designing, bringing out dozens of new work offers for people within the semiconductor world. Its plan is to create new chips that will bring new features for the future versions of already popular Apple hits like iPhone and iPod and also improve issues like battery life, gaming performance and high definition video playback.

In style with the new change in the company’s objectives, Apple hired Raja Koduri, a former 

chief technology officer of the graphics products group at Advanced Micro Devices Inc. Mr. Koduri started work last week, being a colleague with another former AMD employee, Bob Drebin, who held the same position as Raja Koduri in the past. The chip-related job offerings Apple has put online cover a wide range of Apple’s needs, some with short descriptions like “testing the functional correctness of Apple developed silicon.” Apart from Apple’s desire to beat the competition by adding new features , the new direction they’re heading to also reflects their wish to no longer share technology details with the external chip suppliers, some say.

An Apple spokesman refused to make any comments on this.

The new road on which Apple started going on will not be obstacle free and people linked to Apple said that the new chips are not expected to come out until next year at the earliest, even though work is currently in progress. Apple’s sudden burst of hiring also shows the  company’s recent expansion, in contrast with “other giants” who are struggling and making multiple layoffs through the recession.

With this new move, Apple also starts to move away from the habit of outsourcing internal company development plans to external suppliers of chips that most of the big electronics companies have.

Last spring, Apple’s chief executive Steve Jobs talked about the purchasing of P.A. Semi as a way to gather expertise and knowledge in order to help run more advanced and resource-consuming applications on iPhones and iPods. “You can’t just go out and buy the chips off the shelf to do that,” said Mr. Jobs in an interview.

Many of the cellphones today use licensed chip designs from ARM Holdings PLC. For the iPhone , Samsung Electronics Co. provided the custom chip developed by Apple Inc , analysts say.

People who are used with Apple’s way of thinking said that the company is worried about possible leaks of new ideas and features to some of Apple’s competitors.

A Samsung spokeswoman declined to make any comments.

The same people said that Mr. Jobs underlined the fact that he wanted all the information about the development of their new chips to stay within Apple’s walls. Unfortunately, Steve Jobs is on medical leave and was unable to comment about this.
Apple’s intentions are to use the former P.A. Semi engineers to help make ARM-based microprocessors that could improve performance and battery life of future iPhone versions.

The well known networking site LinkedIn showed us that Apple started the hirings way before the P.A. Semi acquisition. The site contains more than 100 people who are currently listing the new Apple jobs, some of which are experienced people who have worked for big names such as Intel Corp., Samsung ,and Qualcomm Inc.

Some clues about Apple’s new features that may come can be found on some job offerings found on Indeed.com . Two recent postings speak about handwriting recognition technology while others seek expertise in chips for managing displays.

Apple was present at a recent job fair for soon-to-be-unemployed Spansion Inc engineers  , a former memory chip company. Spansion Inc. filled for bankruptcy on March 1, 2009 , after massive layoffs.