The likelihood that Apple purchased PA Semi as an avenue to their own low power iPhone or MID device successor is slim, according to The Register on Wednesday. However, Apple may have something else up its sleeve.

"US$278M fails to buy a world-class mobile chip arsenal in this day and age," wrote Ashlee Vance. In essence, Apple would be crazy try try to replace the future Intel chips for future iPhones with this company because of its track record and current roadmap. It would take years for that company, which never had a chip that could replace the current ARM processor Apple uses, to develop one.

Apple is not unfamiliar with PA Semi and has had dealings with them before when they were investigated as a potential successor to the PowerPC chips. Apple is back, not for what everyone thinks, the author wrote, because such a small company couldn’t possible compete with Intel’s offerings for a future CPU like the Atom. And if PA Semi were a real powerhouse, it would have hardly sold out so early and for so little.

"This strategy makes more sense than the mobile line being peddled elsewhere. After all, Apple’s not really the engineering genius that it claims. Intel, for example, did the majority of the work around the MacBook Air, which is why you saw Lenovo, another Intel customer, release the very similar X300 just a couple of weeks after Apple’s grand launch," Ms. Vance wrote. "Apple did little more than excise an Ethernet port and slap a white case on the unit. Apple is not an innards expert, so the idea of it getting into the microprocessor business simply to "gain a competitive design edge" is ludicrous.

What is does get Apple is some expertise in other consumer electronics areas related to, possibly, next generation Apple TV or other new consumer products. Seen in that light, Apple’s acquisition makes a lot more sense.