The Intel Foundation will sell its 4.9 percent stake in Imagination Technologies, the company whose PowerVR graphics processors are a key component of Apple's iPhone and iPad, it was announced on Thursday.
Shortly after Apple introduced its first custom A4 Application Processor in 2010 to power the original iPad, rumors began to suggest the company could eventually migrate its Macs from Intel x86 processors to ARM chip designs of its own. However, there's a series of significant hurdles the company would need to jump first.
Though many will scoff at the notion of an iPad and Mac that draw from the same family of application processors, it's not as farfetched as it seems. AppleInsider takes a look at why today's chipmaking giants could find themselves on the outside looking in during an Apple product launch in the near future.
Mac buyers in 2016 and beyond could have the option of purchasing a machine powered by Apple's A-series processors, which currently sit at the heart of the iPhone and iPad, according to KGI Securities' Ming-Chi Kuo.
As IBM secretly mulls plans to sell off its increasing outdated processor chip fabs in New York and Vermont, a new wave of mobile chip developers—led by Apple, ARM and Qualcomm—are hiring away many of the top chip designers of the once leading firm.
Apple's most popular computing devices, from the iPhone and iPad to MacBook Pro and iMac, could all be powered by the same ARM-based processors, if the company were to decide to make such a switch, according to a new report.
Semiconductor firm Imagination Technologies, whose PowerVR chipsets are at the heart of Apple's A-series processors, on Tuesday previewed the impressive capabilities of its new Wizard series of ray tracing GPUs that may one day bring hyper-realistic graphics to iOS games.
Imagination Technologies, the company whose PowerVR graphics processors are a key component of Apple's iOS devices, unveiled its latest creation on Monday: a 192-core GPU that it claims will produce the most powerful graphics yet in mobile phones and tablets.
Intel Chief Executive Brian Krzanich, who has served as head of the chipmaker for less than one year, was asked on Wednesday about his company's relationship with Apple, and responded that the two parties continue to "grow closer" as time progresses.
A new report out of Taiwan suggests that Apple will not only diversify the supply chain for its next-generation A-series processors, but that the company will also make the leap to a much more advanced fabrication process.
In a bid to bolster the graphics capability of its low-power processors, ARM on Friday announced the acquisition of Geomerics, makers of realtime lighting effects technology used in PC and console gaming.
As Taiwanese chipmaker TSMC gets set to ramp up production on its 20-nanometer process fab in January, some analysts believe the company is poised to take a large bite out of rival Samsung's supply contract for Apple's A-series processors.
The wholesale appropriation of Apple's Macintosh technology portfolio by Microsoft in the early 1990s had a profound effect upon how the industry began to think about intellectual property and protecting innovation through patent filings.
Tipped off by a report from hacker in Luxembourg that accused Samsung of increasing the clock speed of its Android-based Galaxy S 4 specifically, and only, when running certain benchmarks, AnandTech investigated and confirmed that it is indeed cheating to win in performance tests, by design.
Imagination confirmed on Wednesday that Samsung's forthcoming flagship device, the Galaxy S IV, will transition from ARM graphics to Imagination's PowerVR SGX 544MP GPU — the same graphics tech featured in Apple's iPhones and iPads.
Imagination Technologies, the source of PowerVR GPU cores used in Apple's A-series iOS chips, has acquired MIPS, one of the few remaining CPU architectures outside of Intel, ARM and PowerPC.
It's "inevitable" that Apple will merge its Mac and iOS devices at some point, but such a change is not expected to happen for years, in the eyes of one industry watcher.
ARM on Tuesday unveiled new its next-generation of high-performance, power sipping 64-bit chips — CPUs that could power future devices from companies like Apple as soon as 2014.
Apple's future iOS devices may be powered by custom chips built by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., taking a key component away from rival Samsung, according to a new rumor.
Apple has reportedly "deliberated" moving its lineup of Mac computers away from Intel processors, though such a change apparently isn't "imminent."
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Neil Hughes
Daniel Eran Dilger
Sam Oliver
AppleInsider Staff
Shane Cole
Kevin Bostic
Slash Lane
Katie Marsal
