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Apple has revived a licensing relationship with UK-based chipmaker Imagination Technologies.
Imagination said it will allow Apple to access “a wider range of Imagination’s intellectual property” in exchange for fees under a new, “multi-year” deal.
It comes about three years after the iPhone maker’s decision to break ties disrupted Imagination’s business.
Shares plunged and the firm was eventually sold to a Chinese-backed investment firm.
In a statement, Imagination said the new deal would replace the “multi-year, multi-use licence agreement” that the two companies announced back in 2014. Terms were not disclosed.
Founded in 1985, Imagination had been hailed as one of a handful of successful home-grown technology companies.
But its survival was in question in 2017, after Apple said it would end the use of Imagination’s graphics processing units (GPUs) in favour of developing the equipment in-house. At the time, the US giant accounted for about half of Imagination’s revenues.
Months later, Canyon Bridge, a Chinese-backed private equity investment firm, bought Imagination for £550m, a fraction of the Hertforshire-based company’s former value.
Last month, Imagination announced its latest graphics processing architecture, describing it as “the fastest GPU” ever released.