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.