Apple seems to be gearing up to produce its own graphics chip for its upcoming iPhones and iPads. The Cupertino company also recently ended its partnership with the Britain-based Imagination Technologies. The company will no longer produce graphics chips for Apple.
“Apple has asserted that it has been working on a separate, independent graphics design in order to control its products and will be reducing its future reliance on Imagination’s technology,” reads Imagination Technologies’ press release.
Currently Apple is using PowerVR graphics for iPhones, iPads, iPods, TVs and watches, but the in-house production of the chips will allow the company to cut down the production cost as well as with royalties and license agreements.
Imagination Technologies has requested Apple to provide evidence that it won’t violate patents, intellectual property and confidential information that the company currently holds, but Apple refused to provide such evidence.
Furthermore, “Imagination believes that it would be extremely challenging to design a brand new GPU architecture from basics without infringing its intellectual property rights, accordingly Imagination does not accept Apple’s assertions.”
If Apple designs its own graphics chips, it would take around one year to do so and they might be incorporated in iPhones that would arrive in 2019, at the earliest. It is still unclear that the companies will reach some agreement. Since the announcement was made earlier today, Imagination’s stock value dropped over 70 per cent, putting the company in a rather uncomfortable situation.
