Apple designs its own GPU

Apple is developing a graphics processor based on its own design. The company has informed Imagination Technologies that it is canceling its license agreement for the PowerVR technology. In fifteen months, the first products based on its own GPU could be launched on the market.

Apple designs the GPU independently and in-house, but except that the GPU should appear in products within fifteen months to two years, no details are known. There have been rumors for years that Apple wants to make the GPUs in-house. It currently still works on the basis of the PowerVR designs from Imagination, although Apple does have a lot of input in the development of GPUs for iPhones and iPads, among others. However, the new GPUs are their own design that does not rely on PowerVR GPUs.

With this, the company wants to reduce its dependence on the British Imagination Technologies. Apple uses the PowerVR GPUs in iPhones, iPads, iPods, Apple TV and Apple Watch. This makes it by far the largest customer of Imagination Technologies, which depends on the Cupertino company for about half of its turnover.

The British GPU designer says Apple has not provided evidence to make it clear that it does not infringe Imagination’s patents, intellectual property and confidential information. “Imagination believes it is an extreme challenge to develop a new GPU architecture from scratch without infringing,” the company claims.

Last year there were reports of takeover talks between Imagination and Apple. Apparently they came to nothing. Apple does have an 8.1 percent share in Imagination Technologies, according to Bloomberg, making it the fourth largest shareholder. Shares of Imagination went into freefall on Monday after the announcement.

Apple has been designing its own socs for smartphones in the A-series and tablets since 2010, and the Apple Watch also has its own chipsets on board. The basis for this was the acquisition of the small chip designer PA Semi in 2008 and Intrinsity in 2010. For the processor cores in its own socs, Apple designs its own micro-architecture based on ARM architecture. As a result, in 2013, the American company was the first to release a soc with 64-bit ARM processor architecture.