Imagination Technologies charts its future with new Apple deal and post-MIPS strategy

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venturebeat.com, Jan. 18, 2020 – 

Imagination Technologies has been through a lot of change in the past few years. Founded in 1985, it became a real player in intellectual property designs for both processors and graphics chips.

But in 2017, Apple parted ways with Imagination, as far as licensing its mobile graphics chip designs. Imagination ended up in a legal battle with Apple and sold off its MIPS processor licensing business. In November 2017, the Canyon Bridge private equity firm acquired Imagination Technologies for $719 million and took it off the public markets.

But on January 2, Imagination unexpectedly announced that Apple had signed a new multi-year licensing agreement. It was vague, but it was reportedly so Apple could add real-time ray tracing graphics to its mobile devices. I spoke with the new leadership of Imagination at CES 2020, the big tech trade show in Las Vegas.

The interviewees included Ron Black, CEO of Imagination and CTO of its PowerVR graphics division; David Harold, vice president of marketing and communications at Imagination Technologies; and Ray Bingham, cofounder and partner at Canyon Bridge. We spoke about the trends in graphics, processors, and Imagination's new RISC-V open source hardware strategy.

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