Apple buys stake in mobile graphics chip designer

Future versions of Imagination Technologies' graphics cores could mean iPhone games far more sophisticated than 'Super Monkey Ball.'

(Credit: Apple)

Apple has taken a small stake in a British chip designer, revealing how the company plans to power the graphics in future iPhones and iPod Touches.

Imagination announced Thursday that Apple has acquired a 3.6 percent stake in the company, which will only cost Apple 3.2 million pounds, or about $5 million. Imagination designs chip cores for a variety of applications, but its most prominent designs are its PowerVR cores for graphics in mobile phones.

That is believed to be the source of Apple's interest in the company, according to AppleInsider, which has tracked Apple's interest in the PowerVR technology for some time. Earlier this year Imagination announced that a "international electronic systems company" had acquired a license for the PowerVR graphics cores, and in Thursday's press release, Imagination said Apple was also a licensee.

The PowerVR cores will likely sit alongside the ARM-based processor core designs that the former P.A. Semi team is believed to be developing for future iPhones. Imagination has also signed a manufacturing license deal with iPhone processor maker Samsung, perhaps a sign that Apple will continue to use Samsung as a manufacturing partner once the P.A. Semi designs are complete.

[pkeys1]

The release seems to have been deleted from Imagination's web site.

[Tom Krazit]

Huh, that's weird. It was there this morning, but it has also been pulled from Google's cache. Although, if you enter this into Google's search box without parenthesis (site:www.imgtec.com apple), you can see the first couple of lines on the Google search result.

[Nik00]

This could be a response to Microsofts Tegra efforts..

Microsoft has already announced a mobile graphics powerhouse, the ?Tegra? gpu.. normally Microsoft?s involvement wouldn?t mean much, but the fact that NVIDIA is the company behind the Tegra is HUGE! As they have the budget, expertise and creativity to compete against the POWERVR Graphics capabilities.

Tegra Prototypes (10+ hours playback, true multitasking and full OpenGL ES 2.0 support): http://uk.youtube.com/results?search_query=Tegra

[SpiritWater]

A 3.6% stake in the company for $5 million probably was a means to get the company to design specifically for Apple's wares. Why not buy the company in whole like PA Semi, unless Apple wants to just prop the company up and make it a mult-vendor concern.

[JasonAlexander]

Power VR Rox!