Is Apple building technology links with Imagination?

The deal has triggered speculation that the licensee is a major consumer electronics manufacturer, and the Apple blog sites are awash with rumours of an extended Imagination licence.

According to Imagination, it has concluded a new multi-year, multi-use license agreement with the unnamed company which gives it access to both current and future PowerVR graphics and video IP cores.

There is some speculation tha the mystery company is Apple, but it already uses a PowerVR MBX core in the iPhone.

Commenting on the deal Imagination said: “It is expected that Imagination’s IP cores will feature in a number of new SoCs to be used in this company’s future products.”

If this is now a wider range licence deal it could match in importance Imagination’s deal with Intel. Intel’s Centrino Atom processor chipset, which was announced last month, includes graphics and video processors from Hertfordshire-based Imagination Technologies.

The cores are PowerVR SGX graphics and VXD multi-standard HD video processors, which will be located in what Intel calls the ‘system controller hub’ – one chip which combines north bridge, south bridge and graphics chipset functions.

SGX is a programmable shader type graphics processor. “It is a scalabe product family from versions for mid-range cell phones to high-end arcade consols,” said spokesman David Harold. “Intel has licenced one of them. We are not allowed to say which one, but it is obviously not the entry level.”

This was not the first time Intel adopted cores from Imagination. In 2002 Intel licenced Imagination’s MBX 3D graphics technology, which emerged in 2004 in Intel’s 2700G mobile graphics alongside the PowerVR video accelerator.

In 2006 the firms signed a collaborative agreement to put more Imagination cores in Intel PCs and mobiles. As part of the tie-up with Intel Capital put £5.28m into the video processor firm, giving it a 2.9 per cent stake in Imagination.

Imagination said in this latest deal it will receive on-going licence fees as well as royalty revenues on SoCs incorporating its IP.