Shortly after shares in British firm Imagination Technologies plunged by nearly 70% last week as Apple notified the company who provide the PowerVR graphics architecture found in iOS devices that they plan to stop using its graphics technology in consumer devices in up to two years’ time, Apple has started a mass recruitment drive in the United Kingdom for staff to work in their graphics design unit in their UK based Design Centre, showing how eager the company is to build their own graphics technology.
Apple is searching for a wide range of new employees, including an engineering program manager, design verification lead, emulation engineer and other roles described as requiring GPU knowledge. Imagination Technologies employees are likely to be a key target, with profiles on LinkedIn revealing that at least 25 former Imagination staff have joined Apple in the last two years in San Francisco and London as discovered by The Telegraph.
Imagination Technologies has claimed that making a mobile GPU is so complicated and intricate that Apple will be unable to do it without infringing on IMG patents and ultimately pay IMG a licensing fee once again. In a press release by the British based company on the 3rd April, the company said “Apple has used Imagination’s technology and intellectual property for many years. It has formed the basis of Graphics Processor Units (“GPUs”) in Apple’s phones, tablets, iPods, TVs and watches. 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. – 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.”