Apple has hired two high-ranking executives from ATI Technologies, now graphics products group of Advanced Micro Devices. According to some information, at least one of them will be involved in the development of next-generations of iPhone and considering positions of both in AMD, their work will be primarily associated with graphics.

In a bid to further strengthen its graphics technologies expertise, Apple has hired Bob Drebin and Raja Koduri, who both were chief technology officers of AMD’s graphics products group recently, reports The Inquirer web-site. Mr. Drebin has already confirmed via his LinkedIn update that he is now senior director at Apple, whereas some media reports indicated that he is now a part of iPhone/iPod team. Mr. Koduri yet has to confirm his departure from AMD and joining Apple.

Bob Drebin is known as a designer of graphics processors for video game consoles, including Flipper for Nintendo GameCube, and, presumably, Hollywood for Nintendo Wii and Xenos/R500 for Microsoft Xbox 360.

Raja Koduri, who used to work at S3 Graphics, has been one of the leading designers of discrete graphics chips at ATI Technologies and then AMD’s GPG for about eight years. Besides, Mr. Koduri was one of the GPGPU (general-purpose computing on graphics processing units) visionaries at the company.

Apple has been pretty aggressive in boosting its technology and, particularly, semiconductor talent at the company. A year ago the company acquired Power micro-architecture chips specialist PA Semi, then hired ex-IBM chip executive Mark Papermaster, then made an investment into graphics technologies developer Imagination Technologies.

Tags: Apple, iPod, iPhone