Apple Is Set on Developing Its Own iPhone Graphics Chip Technology

On Monday morning, Apple announced its plans to stop licensing its graphics chips to British firm Imagination Technologies, and will move forward with plans to develop its own. The British company’s products has been widely used in the graphics processing units (GPUs) of the iPhone, iPad and iPod for years, making Apple Imagination’s biggest client.

Moving ahead with its own designs, Apple aims to introduce the new technology into next year’s iPhone, likely to be released in 2018. However, Imagination is skeptical that Apple would be able to come up with chip technology without using Imagination’s intellectual property. “Apple has asserted that it has been working on a separate, independent graphics design in order to control its products and will be reducing its future reliance on Imagination’s technology,” Imagination said.

Depending on what Apple manages to come up with, we could be seeing a patent battle or a radically new GPU design sometime next year. Read the rest of the statement from Imagination Technologies below:

“Apple has not presented any evidence to substantiate its assertion that it will no longer require Imagination’s technology, without violating Imagination’s patents, intellectual property and confidential information. This evidence has been requested by Imagination but Apple has declined to provide it.

“Further, Imagination believes that it would be extremely challenging to design a brand new GPU architecture from basics without infringing its intellectual property rights, accordingly Imagination does not accept Apple’s assertions.”

In case you missed it, here’s a closer look at Apple’s PRODUCT(RED) iPhone 7.