Apple To Be Parting Ways With Imagination Graphics

[L_A_G]

Not exactly surprising as they're already designing their own CPUs and have poached a load of Imagination Tech's engineers over the years. I think the writing has been on the wall for over a year already so I don't think this should have come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the relationship between the two companies. The only real surprise here is that they announced their in-house efforts this way and not trough an actual product like they usually do.

As for the talk about them having to infringe on Imagination Tech's patents to create their own competing chips, they're known to not care about other companies' patents. They usually offer the patent holders pennies on the dollar compared to what they should pay when the patent holders try to negotiate licensing agreements outside of courts and then settle when the patent holders sue them after negotiations go nowhere. Just look at their history with Nokia if you want to see what they think about other companies' patents.

[bridgman]

I knew Apple was big, but I just noticed their revenues have almost caught up with those of the entire global semiconductor industry

[juno]

I really doubt that is the goal.

And why not? It is certainly not the reason for this move, but you can't doubt it is the track they are following on the software side.

[wizard69]

Wow, so they can finally enforce their "WebMetal" and never mention Vulkan or OpenGL again.

I really doubt that is the goal.

[wizard69]

They probably already own the IP from their other cross licensing deals now, so why pay Imagination when they already have it themselves?

Imaginations tech is their own and unique.

As for Apple there are a number of possibilities here, they could have teamed up with Nvidia or AMD for IP to incorporate into their SoC. Or they could be going it alone as the article suggests. There have been plenty of rumors of Apple hiring a massive number of AMD engineers.

In the long run I suspect Apple has no choice here as they will need access to hardware to drive AI features into its chips. Some of those AI features map well on to GPU architectures and would only become more efficient if optimized. jOf course the big problem here is that with all the engineers they have hired from other GPU manufactures they have to be very careful about not infringing. It will be very interesting to see what Apple comes up with.

As for Imagination Tech., they can go to hell for all I care. Their attitude with respect to drivers sucks and frankly it is good reason to drive the company into receivership. Too bad AMD never followed through on ARM based chips integrated with their GPU's.

[edwaleni]

They probably already own the IP from their other cross licensing deals now, so why pay Imagination when they already have it themselves?

[juno]

Wow, so they can finally enforce their "WebMetal" and never mention Vulkan or OpenGL again.

[bug77]

And they'll opensource the drivers. Or not.

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Apple To Be Parting Ways With Imagination Graphics

Apple has been the largest customer of Imagination Technologies with continuing to rely upon PowerVR graphics IP in their chips, but it looks like that is changing and Apple could be rolling out their own GPUs...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Apple-No-More-PowerVR