Apple restores Imagination GPU chip agreement after public dispute and employee poaching

guest · Jan 1, 2020

Apple restores Imagination GPU chip agreement after public dispute and employee poaching
January 1, 2020
https://9to5mac.com/2020/01/01/apple-imagination-agreement/

New year, new Apple … and an agreement with former GPU chip supplier Imagination Technologies. That’s according to a brief announcement from the British chip maker.
The development comes after months of public disputes between the two companies, Imagination employees being poached by Apple, and Imagination being sold to new owners.
The timeline
Apple warned Imagination in 2017 that it would stop relying on its graphics processing units used in iPhones and iPads within two years. Apple later delivered its first custom GPU as part of its A11 chip inside the iPhone 8 and iPhone X in 2018.

Payments from Apple to Imagination dramatically decreased after the shift. The arrangement before the two companies ending was also the source of much public drama.
Imagination later filed a formal complaint against Apple over its deal ending, blaming Apple for its performance in an annual report.

Imagination was forced to put itself up for sale after losing Apple’s business.
Click to expand...

New agreement
So what’s changed? Good question.

Imagination Technologies (“Imagination”) announces that it has replaced the multi-year, multi-use license agreement with Apple, first announced on February 6, 2014, with a new multi-year license agreement under which Apple has access to a wider range of Imagination’s intellectual property in exchange for license fees.
Click to expand...

guest · Jan 2, 2020

Apple’s Imagination Technologies deal is all about ray tracing and AR
January 2, 2020
https://venturebeat.com/2020/01/02/...ologies-deal-is-all-about-ray-tracing-and-ar/

Under the new agreement, Apple will gain “wider range” access to Imagination’s IP going forward, and since the British company’s most significant new IP focuses on a realistic graphics technology called ray tracing, it’s highly likely that Apple plans to add ray tracing capabilities to its chips in the foreseeable future.
If you’re not familiar with ray tracing [...] In short, ray tracing enables computers to render graphics with ultra-realistic lighting, reflections, and shadowing that mimic rays of light as seen by the human eye.

Ray tracing’s next move will be mobile chips. Last May, I flagged the technology’s potential appeal to Apple when Imagination began promoting its mobile ray tracing system to competitors, promising a highly power-efficient solution that could work inside pocket-sized devices.

If Apple was just getting started with the “wider range” of Imagination IP in 2020, it could take a few years before ray tracing makes its way into its mobile devices.
But there’s a good chance that both Apple and its competitors were already evaluating and working on solutions before this agreement was signed
Click to expand...

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