Fruit themed tech cult Apple has bought more than 3.6 per cent of the UK-based Imagination Technologies Group. Imagination is know for its graphics technology blueprints that served for example as the foundation for Intel graphics chips in the past.
Last year Apple secured a "multi-year, multi-use license" of Imagination's SGX/VXD graphics and video IP cores. The current iPhone and iPod touch generation uses Imagination's fourth-generation PowerVR MBX Lite 3D accelerator. While this was just an improved of the second-generation chip that ran inside Sega's Dreamcast gaming console it had a tile-based rendering system to enable gaming.
It is now looking like Apple wants Imagination's more powerful PowerVR SGX/VXD cores for future iPhones. If it does that it will get OpenGL ES 2.0 compatibility and the Universal Scalable Shader Engine for hardware-accelerated, shader-based 3D graphics. It can also manage HD video on a mobile device with a power consumption comparable to the existing audio playback chips.
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