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Apple Licensing Imagination's PowerVR Graphics Cores for Future Products?

Imagination Technologies announced today that they have secured a new multi-year, multi-use license agreement which gives an unnamed company access to the company's wide range of current and future PowerVR graphics and video cores.

As a result of this new agreement, it is expected that Imaginations IP cores will feature in a number of new SoCs to be used in this companys future products. Under the terms of the above licensing arrangement, Imagination will receive on-going licence fees as well as royalty revenues on SoCs incorporating Imaginations IP.

It's been widely speculated that Apple is the licensee for Imagination Technology's graphics cores. Apple currently uses the fourth-generation PowerVR chipset in the iPhone and iPod Touch.

EETimes ties this together with rumors that Apple had also acquired a major architectual licensing deal with ARM, which also powers the iPhone. If true, Apple is positioning itself to deliver custom chipsets based on existing iPhone technologies for future devices.

Apple's recent acquisition of P.A. Semi certainly brings this speculation into the realm of possibility.

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45 months ago
Looking forward to seeing what comes out of this.
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45 months ago
Seems promising.
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45 months ago
could this effect this Tuesday? The agreement was back in July, right?
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45 months ago
Wow-- this almost looks like there was a plan all along!
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45 months ago
Apple, when they decide to release it, is going to make the nettop to kill all nettops. The pieces that are being put into place aren't for laptops and desktops, its all that the ipod to nettop sized market.
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45 months ago
hopefully something is coming for the touch laptops
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45 months ago

Apple, when they decide to release it, is going to make the nettop to kill all nettops. The pieces that are being put into place aren't for laptops and desktops, its all that the ipod to nettop sized market.


Exactly. This is gonna rock. Now that we have the iPhone and iPod touch we're already feaming for more.
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45 months ago
Look at "Apple Unidentified" under the Series 5 cores...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerVR

...




blakespot
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45 months ago

Apple, when they decide to release it, is going to make the nettop to kill all nettops. The pieces that are being put into place aren't for laptops and desktops, its all that the ipod to nettop sized market.


And yet, with Grand Central and nVidia's CUDA technology on the desktop and laptop also offering new options, Apple could really be looking to provide a "holistic" approach across all form factors from the iPod Touch/iPhone through the "MacNettop" and on up through the iMac/MacBook/Mac Pro.

Talk about leverage. :cool:
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45 months ago

could this effect this Tuesday? The agreement was back in July, right?

Yeh, last July (2007)...
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