Apple will license Imagination’s graphics-related intellectual property

Until 2017, Imagination Technologies was supplying GPU for Apple iPhones and iPads. From 2017, Apple replaced them with in-house developed GPUs. But Apple was using Imagination’s intellectual property for its own GPUs. To avoid paying royalties, Apple’s plan was to get rid of Imagination’s intellectual property in two years. Imagination at that time said that it will be extremely challenging for Apple to design a GPU in a way that allows them not to pay royalties to Imagination.

Today, Imagination announced that it has replaced the old multi-year, multi-use license agreement with Apple. With a new multi-year license agreement, Apple has access to a wider range of Imagination’s intellectual property in exchange for license fees. This deal indicates that Apple was not able to develop its own GPU without Imagination’s IP.

Recently Imagination announced new IMG A-Series GPU IP solutions that delivers higher performance, lower power (compared to competitors at the same clock and process), and lower bandwidth (at the same cache size as competitors) and all at a smaller silicon size. Its architecture also offers strong differentiators such as guaranteed 50% image compression data (lossless in most cases, or visually lossless in exception cases).

Source: Imagination