What's Apple Building in There?

Apple has fleshed out its chip design group with another key hire. The company has recruited Bob Drebin, former CTO of AMD’s Graphics Products Group, as a senior director.

Apple (AAPL) won’t say what it is exactly that Drebin’s going to work on, though it’s a safe bet it’s related to the multicore graphics processors in which he has his expertise. After all, Drebin’s the guy that, according to his AMD bio, “led the architecture and design of many of ATI award-winning graphics processors” and “was responsible for the design of the graphics chip used in Nintendo’s GameCube console.” That’s quite a CV and one that suggests he’ll jibe well with the rock-star chip design team Apple brought in-house with its April 2008 acquisition of boutique semiconductor design company, P.A. Semi.

What that team is working on, of course, is anyone’s guess. Perhaps something to power that high-definition, touchscreen e-book reader it’s rumored to be building…