Apple announced that it has hired IBM veteran Mark Papermaster to lead its iPod and iPhone hardware engineering teams. The IBM vice president was one of the chief architects of IBM’s PowerPC processor business.

In April, Apple also purchased chip designer PA Semi for $278 million as in hard cash but in July Intel acknowledged that Apple wouldn’t be using the Atom processor in its next-generation that is for iPhone and iPod.

In June Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs told The New York Times the PA Semi team will be designing silicon for Apple’s iPods and iPhones.

Apple has taken a few steps down the path. PA Semi reported that it is supplying its power-efficient chips to a range of defense contractors that balked when Apple signaled it would stop producing PA Semi’s chips.

It’s unsafe to try to second-guess Apple’s plans. Papermaster and the engineers Apple brought on from PA Semi could be used to bolster Apple’s minuscule server business. They could redesign the silicon which is the central processing unit in Apple’s notebook computersand even make the team possible and can gradually explore the idea of shifting the Macintosh away from Intel’s processors There have already been enough of speculation.