Imagination sells chip design business
- Author:Ella Cai
- Release on:2017-05-17
Imagination Technologies has agreed a deal to sell its SoC and software design business to UK-based design firm Sondrel.
Design engineers employed in the IMGworks division will join with Sondrel’s existing engineering consultancy to create a combined IC design capability comprising more than 250 highly skilled employees.
Imagination is in the middle of a major business overhaul following last month’s revelation that Apple, its biggest customer, will stop using Imagination’s intellectual property in new products in 15 months’ to two years’ time.
Earlier this month Imagination said it was selling its MIPS processor and Ensigma units which together brought in £21m or 29% of its revenues last quarter.
Berkshire-based Sondrel set up its own design and verification business two years ago. A specific specialisation in design of image processing ICs allows Sondrel to address growing applications in ADAS car systems, artificial intelligence and machine vision.
The IMGworks team will bring to this business system on chip design capabilities in graphics, GPU and video processing.
This will extend Sondrel’s capability to comprehensive system on chip projects.
Sondrel CEO, Graham Curren, writes:
“Video and graphics related business is going through a steep growth curve, driven not only by gaming and infotainment systems but also by the accelerated computational needs of the AI environment that enables many of the new automotive, enterprise cloud and IoT related products.”
Sondrel was founded in 2002, and is a privately held company. It has design centres in China, Europe and Morocco.
Design engineers employed in the IMGworks division will join with Sondrel’s existing engineering consultancy to create a combined IC design capability comprising more than 250 highly skilled employees.
Imagination is in the middle of a major business overhaul following last month’s revelation that Apple, its biggest customer, will stop using Imagination’s intellectual property in new products in 15 months’ to two years’ time.
Earlier this month Imagination said it was selling its MIPS processor and Ensigma units which together brought in £21m or 29% of its revenues last quarter.
Berkshire-based Sondrel set up its own design and verification business two years ago. A specific specialisation in design of image processing ICs allows Sondrel to address growing applications in ADAS car systems, artificial intelligence and machine vision.
The IMGworks team will bring to this business system on chip design capabilities in graphics, GPU and video processing.
This will extend Sondrel’s capability to comprehensive system on chip projects.
Sondrel CEO, Graham Curren, writes:
“Video and graphics related business is going through a steep growth curve, driven not only by gaming and infotainment systems but also by the accelerated computational needs of the AI environment that enables many of the new automotive, enterprise cloud and IoT related products.”
Sondrel was founded in 2002, and is a privately held company. It has design centres in China, Europe and Morocco.
