Apple Buys Higher Stake In PowerVR Technology

PowerVR is the chipset used in iPods and iPhones to drive the graphics display. Designed and manufactured by British company Imagination Technologies, the PowerVR series of chips offers programmers some of the same types of capabilities found in desktop and mobile graphics chips, in a package that can be used in something as small as an iPhone.

Apple is so impressed by Imagination Technologies that it upped its stake in the company by purchasing 13.72 million shares. Combined with the shares purchased last year, this brings Apple’s stake in Imagination Technologies to 9.5 percent.

Apple isn’t the only company interested in Imagination Technologies. Intel recently purchased additional shares, upping its stake to 14 percent of the company.

Apple’s move may have been designed to ensure unfettered access to the technologies, as Intel may have made its move with an eye on a company takeover or just to ensure access to the PowerVR chips it plans to use in its “Pine Trail” series of netbook chipsets.