It looks like Apple may be preparing to use a small portion of its billions to acquire another company. According to the latest reports, Apple is reportedly gearing up to purchase an Israeli fabless semiconductor company that specializes in streamlining flash memory.

Israel's Calcalist reports that Apple is in talks to buy Israel-based Anobit for $400 million to $500 million. According to the Hebrew website, the company's chips are already integrated into some of Apple's biggest products, including the iPhone, the iPad and the MacBook Air. Anobit uses a unique signal processing technology called Memory Signal Processing, which is said to significantly improve endurance and performance while cutting down on the cost of flash storage. Apple apparently wants to buy the company so it can boost memory and improve memory reliability on its devices.

If the deal goes through, it will join the very small number of hardware companies that Apple has acquired over the year. So far, this list includes just four other companies: NeXT, Raycer Graphics, Intrinsity and P.A. Semi.

Check out the original report (in Hebrew) here.