Apple partner Imagination announces new plan to take on ARM
Imagination Technologies, the mobile graphics chip company of which Apple is part owner, is set to announce a partnership with fellow chipmaker MIPS Technologies in an effort to counter competitor ARM Holdings.
According to EETimes, the partnership will be announced this week at the Embedded Systems Conference in Silicon Valley. As first reported by AppleInsider in 2008, Apple purchased a 3 percent stake in Imagination Technologies, and last year the iPhone maker increased its share to 9.5 percent. Imagination Technologies is responsible for the PowerVR graphics technology inside the iPhone and iPod touch.
Imagination's forthcoming partnership with MIPS Technologies aims to help customers who license chip designs from both firms. While MIPS processors are often found in set top boxes, the company has reportedly launched an initiative to move into the handset space. The agreement will not involve the sharing of intellectual property between the two companies -- yet.
Art Swift, vice president of marketing for MIPS, said such a partnership could happen in the future, with co-development between the two companies. But for now, the non-exclusive marketing alliance aims to help offer support to customers that offer system-on-a-chip designs using processing cores from both companies. Swift said that a "series of announcements" between the two companies are forthcoming.
While Apple is a part-owner of Imagination, it also is a licensee of ARM's chip designs, and has even been rumored to be eyeing the company for a potential purchase. However, those rumors were quickly downplayed by the CEO of ARM, who said he saw little benefit in Apple, or anyone, buying his company.
The partnership between Imagination and MIPS was described by EETimes as a "shot across the bow" to competitor ARM. But Tony King-Smith, vice president of marketing for Imagination, said his company will continue to work with ARM and its licensees. He added that Imagination believes Apple will continue to utilize the PowerVR core in its future handsets.
Apple has been making moves in the chip industry in recent years, with recent evidence indicating that Apple purchased chip designer Intrinsity, which is believed to help build the speedy 1GHz A4 custom processor found inside the iPad. Apple also bought fabless chip designer P.A. Semi for $278 million in 2008.
According to EETimes, the partnership will be announced this week at the Embedded Systems Conference in Silicon Valley. As first reported by AppleInsider in 2008, Apple purchased a 3 percent stake in Imagination Technologies, and last year the iPhone maker increased its share to 9.5 percent. Imagination Technologies is responsible for the PowerVR graphics technology inside the iPhone and iPod touch.
Imagination's forthcoming partnership with MIPS Technologies aims to help customers who license chip designs from both firms. While MIPS processors are often found in set top boxes, the company has reportedly launched an initiative to move into the handset space. The agreement will not involve the sharing of intellectual property between the two companies -- yet.
Art Swift, vice president of marketing for MIPS, said such a partnership could happen in the future, with co-development between the two companies. But for now, the non-exclusive marketing alliance aims to help offer support to customers that offer system-on-a-chip designs using processing cores from both companies. Swift said that a "series of announcements" between the two companies are forthcoming.
While Apple is a part-owner of Imagination, it also is a licensee of ARM's chip designs, and has even been rumored to be eyeing the company for a potential purchase. However, those rumors were quickly downplayed by the CEO of ARM, who said he saw little benefit in Apple, or anyone, buying his company.
The partnership between Imagination and MIPS was described by EETimes as a "shot across the bow" to competitor ARM. But Tony King-Smith, vice president of marketing for Imagination, said his company will continue to work with ARM and its licensees. He added that Imagination believes Apple will continue to utilize the PowerVR core in its future handsets.
Apple has been making moves in the chip industry in recent years, with recent evidence indicating that Apple purchased chip designer Intrinsity, which is believed to help build the speedy 1GHz A4 custom processor found inside the iPad. Apple also bought fabless chip designer P.A. Semi for $278 million in 2008.
Comments
MIPS Technologies is one of those companies that never recovered from the 2000 internet bubble burst.
Wow... that's for sure!
Wonder if this is more of an "I'm not dead yet" thing or if they have some ideas for innovation...
This may lead to fragmentation of iPhones if this goes where I think it may go.
If it's just the chipset were taking about, then there's nothing you should worry about. Look how Apple transitioned from ppc to x86 architectures. With their new LLVM compiler strategy, code can simply work on any hardware devices. With the upcoming IPhone OS 4 supporting LLVM, future applications can work optimally in future devices. Why do you think Apple is pushing developers to comply with 3.3.1? This isn't about 3rd party toolset but more to futureproofing their codebase. Just like Adobe's Carbon to Cocoa API fiasco.
I just find it perplexing that an announcement like this generates almost a half dozen posts of hand wringing and fear that Apple will be using MIPS processors in the future. Maybe they will most likely not but the message says nothing about that. Imagination is an IP company, they don't make money unless they sell that IP to other companies.
Dave
I just find it perplexing that an announcement like this generates almost a half dozen posts of hand wringing and fear that Apple will be using MIPS processors in the future. Maybe they will most likely not but the message says nothing about that. Imagination is an IP company, they don't make money unless they sell that IP to other companies.
Dave
This may lead to fragmentation of iPhones if this goes where I think it may go.
Given Apple's amazing history of smooth platform migrations (MC68K->PPC32->PPC64->X86->X64), this won't be a problem if developers are all using Xcode.
More twists and turns than a welsh road.
More twists then a politicians backbone.
More twists and turns than my reason to the wife why I need an Ipad.
Definitely some interesting stuff there.
Aside from that, there's nothing much more to read into this apart from a company working with another company for mutual benefit.