Apple triples stake in U.K. chip company
Apple on Friday upped its stake in U.K. chip company, Imagination Technologies.
The company purchased 2.2 million shares at 1.43 British pounds ($2.36), for a total cost of 3.14 million pounds ($5.19 million). The purchase brings Apple's stake in the company to 9.5 percent, effectively tripling its ownership in Imagination, according to a report on MocoNews.
Apple uses Imagination's SGX GPU in the recently released iPhone 3G S, allowing it to have much better graphics using Apple's OpenGL ES 2.0, according to AppleInsider. Samsung is reportedly integrating Imagination's technology into system-on-a-chip devices.
OpenGL ES 2.0 is a cross-platform API that allows for 2D and 3D graphics on embedded systems. IT essentially creates a low-level interface between the software and graphics hardware system.
Jim Dalrymple has followed Apple and the Mac industry for the last 15 years, first as part of MacCentral and then in various positions at Macworld. A guitar player for 20 years, Jim also writes about the professional audio market, examining the best ways to write and record songs on a Macintosh with Logic Pro and Pro Tools. Jim is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
- by mbenedict June 26, 2009 3:01 PM PDT
- Very shallow reporting. Left out is the fact that INTEL now owns 16% of Imagination, and that Imagination's largest shareholder is in financial difficulty.
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- by eyepoker June 29, 2009 10:17 AM PDT
- thank you for your insight mbenedict.....
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(6 Comments)Imagination is largely owned by a Saudi Arabian company -- privately held Saad Group -- which is under SEVERE financial stress. Some of the Saad Group's accounts were recently frozen by the Saudi government. The group is controlled by Saudi billionaire Maan al-Sanea who, among other things, owned the Khobar Towers (site of the 1996 suicide bombing which killed 19 U.S. servicemen.)
Moves by Intel and Apple to buy shares is their way to ensure continued access to their IP licenses, in case the Saad Group is forced to dump Imagination to raise money for its other concerns.