Ditched by Apple, Imagination Technologies is up for sale

Want to buy a graphics chip company? Imagination Technologies, the British company that designed the graphics chips used in iOS devices, is for sale after losing 70% of its value after being ditched by its Apple, its biggest customer, reports Reuters.

Analysts said potential buyers could include Intel, Qualcomm, Mediatek, CEVA and various entities from China, while Apple itself could be interested. Apple announced in April it would stop using Imagination Technologies’ intellectual property within two years, ending its royalty payments. 

The tech giant is working on its own custom graphics architecture to control more of the core technology, in the same way that it already architects custom CPU silicon designs. 9to5Mac says this suggests that Apple will be using a custom GPU stack in the Apple A12 chip.

In December 2008 Apple picked up a 3.6% stake in Imagination Technologies. There were rumors that Apple would buy the company. It never happened, but several Imagination Technologies’ employees have gone to work at Apple, including the company’s former chief operating officer, John Metcalfe, and engineers Dave Roberts, Jonathan Redshaw, Simon Nield, and Benjamin Bowman.