Apple and Imagination Kiss and Makeup- Enters new Licensing Agreement
Imagination Technologies was one of the leading GPU vendor for mobile devices including iPhone, was ditched by Apple in 2017 when Apple decided to use its own GPU design has now reconciled again and have now entered multi year agreement with its new GPU design.
As per the statement issued by Imagination Technologies:
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.
But why now?
The new agreement is right after Imagination’s new A series GPU IP announcement which was proclaimed as words fastest GPU IP.
Apple in its present incarnation is still using some sort of modified avatar of Imagination’s GPU and this will bolster it GPU prowess as Qualcomm has started biting the GPU crown in mobile devices.
The A series GPU by Imagination will arrive to target 3 different segments called AXT, AXM and AXE.
AXT: The flagship mobile GPU has two variants, the big brother has 2 teraflops worth the performance, a fill rate of 64 gigapixel/s and AI instruction performance can be achieved at 8 TOPS. The little sibling is exactly half of that and boasts, 1 teraflop, 32gigapixel/s fill rate and AI performance of 4 TOPS.
AXM: The GPU represents mi range performance and has 256 gigaflops worth the performance, a fill rate of 8 gigapixel/s and AI instruction performance tops out at 1 TOPS.
AXM: The smallest GPU in A series has a performance of 16 gigaflops, a fill rate of 1 gigapixel/s and no dedicated AI instructions. However, it is touted as the fastest Vulkan performer in its class implying its multithreaded optimization for Vulkan.
This is good news for both sides as Imagination was ailing due to no major new IP shipment and Apple can retain its edge in GPU department for its iPad Pro and iPhones.
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