Zhang Zhiwei
Two veteran graphics card manufacturers are about to usher in more powerful rivals than Intel.
Imagination Technologies (ImgTec), a UK company that provides GPU graphic display technology for the iPhone and iPad, recently announced that major customer Apple will gradually decommission its technology license in the next 15 to 24 months and move to its own R&D mobile. Device GPU architecture.
When this news came out, ImgTec's share price hit a 72% drop. And stock market analysts have labeled the London-listed company as not worth investing.
As the earliest technology company to enter the mobile GPU market, ImgTec has been providing the PowerVR series of GPU technology licenses for Apple’s first iPhone since 2007.
The first generation iPhone used PowerVR MBX GPU
Ten years later, Apple has become ImgTec's largest customer. In the most recent fiscal year, Apple paid IMGTec 60.7 million pounds for patent licensing fees, which accounted for 69% of its total GPU licensing fees.
This means that if ImgTec completely loses Apple's key customer two years later, the company's revenue will be tumbled.
Although we can't yet know how powerful Apple's self-developed GPU architecture is and how it will be integrated into the iPhone and iPad, investors' reactions in the stock market can already show some problems.
In the most recent trading day, the stock price of the old desktop graphics card design and manufacturer Nvidia and AMD fell by 7% and 3.28%, respectively.
The most worth mentioning is Nvidia. The company has repeatedly tried to enter the mobile GPU market in the past few years, but all failed.
Devices such as Microsoft Surface RT, Xiaomi 3, and Dell Streak Tablets that used the Tegra processor have not sold well and have a good reputation. Nintendo Switch, which was released last month, also uses Infineon processors.
In recent years, Nvidia is working hard to get its own GPU into more data centers to handle the huge computing tasks needed for cloud services.
AMD's situation is not optimistic, although Apple's high-profile version of the Macbook Pro, iMac, Mac Pro are using AMD's graphics processors, but that does not mean that Apple will not design their own desktop GPU.
For Apple, the A-series CPUs and graphics processors designed by the company can theoretically provide better performance and user experience, but the initial investment in R&D is undoubtedly enormous.
Fortunately, the iPhone's average selling price of around 700 U.S. dollars worldwide can provide Apple with sufficient research and development funds.
Apple has also been making acquisitions and talents for years. Last June, John Metcalfe, chief operating officer of ImgTec, left the company to serve as senior director of Apple. Four other senior engineers were also taken away by Apple.
The prospect of ImgTec may not be really optimistic.
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