The Globes business daily reported that Apple is going to set up its research and development center in Israel that will focus on semiconductors.

According to the Israeli newspaper, Israeli high-tech veteran Aharon Aharon has already been hired by the developer of iPhones, iPads and iPods to run their New R&D center in Israel but Apple haven’t confirmed this yet.

The Globes business daily said that though Apple was a global innovation leader but it is a small investor in Research and Development. Apple invested $2.4 billion in R&D last year which was just 2 percent of its total revenue.

The Globes also said that R&D center in Herzliya(Israel’s version of Silicon Valley) would be Apple’s first R & D center outside California,US

Ed Frank, Apple’s R&D vice president was currently visiting Israel, the newspaper said.

According to the Israeli media reports, Apple was in advanced talks to acquire an Israeli maker of flash storage technology Anobit for $400-$500 million but Apple has declined to comment on this report as well.