iPhone GPU maker Imagination technologies up for sale

Imagination Technology was recently in the news regarding losing one of their biggest client, Apple, ditching their GPU chips for future for iPhones and iPads. Now they are once again in news, not due to any other rumour but confirmed news of the company being put for sale.

It was believed that Apple is planning to design its own GPU for future Apple devices which led Imagination Technology to start a dispute resolution procedure with the Cupertino giant over licensing payments. This was done over the chipmaker’s concern over Apple not being able to produce it sown technology without infringing on the patents. Therefore, to play it safe, Imagination Technologies put its MIPS and Ensigma networking businesses up for sale, following the whole company available for purchase.

Imagination Technologies have been responsible for the PowerVR GPU chip that powers the iPhones and many other smartphone chipsets from popular manufacturers such as Samsung’s Exynos, Mediatek’s MT8173 and some Rockchip chipsets. In all of these, Apple has been the biggest customer to Imagination owing to 50 percent of the company’s revenue.

It was heard last year that Apple was interested in a complete acquisition of Imagination, possibly for developing exclusive GPU chips for its future smartphones and tablets. However, Imagination Technologies haven’t revealed any information about the interested buyers.

(Source)