Intel now owns 14% of UK-based graphics processor developer Imagination Technologies.
Does this mean that one day the microprocessor giant will acquire the UK company?
A simple look at the changes taking place in the microprocessor market would indicate that Intel would like to take full control of Imagination and its IP.
But it also knows that such a move could trigger a bidding war for the UK company.
See: Q5 Interview - Hossein Yassaie, Imagination Technologies
Intel has two rivals in the microprocessor architecture. The x86 based chips of AMD and the ARM-based chips of a whole host of companies.
Intel finds itself battling AMD in the traditional PC microprocessor market and a range of super-low power ARM processors in the netbook and smartphone markets.
But AMD and ARM recognised the importance of graphics processing a number of years back.
It could be argued that Intel is now moving in eth same direction and it now seems likely that it has decided that Imaginations PowerVR graphics processor core will give it what it needs.
AMD got its Radeon graphics processor architecture when it acquired the company behind it, ATI in 2007.
AMD now offers the desktop market a range of graphics processor chips and accelerator boards.
As yet the company has not integrated the processor core with the CPU for an assault in eth mobile or embedded processor market.
Embedding the graphics processor and the CPU is what ARM-based processors can offer and the Cambridge-based processor firm believes it has the right graphics core, called Mali, which it acquired Falanx Microsystems in 2006.
In true ARM style it has created a partner programme and a range of hardware and software IP around the Mali graphics processor.
This can be integrated with the ARM CPU to create anything from a small very low power GPU up to a multi-core 1080p HD processing unit.
ARM has announced that its Mali graphics processor conforms to the Khronos OpenGL ES 2.0 API at resolutions up to 1080p.
Intel gets the same OpenGL mobile graphics capability from Imagination.
The UK firm’s PowerVR SGX, which supports OpenGL 2.0, OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenGL ES 1.1 and OpenVG 1.0, is already shipping in system-on-chip devices from Intel as well as NEC, Renesas and Texas Instruments.
And that’s the one obstacle to a full takeover of Imagination by Intel. Its technology has been used by a number of other leading chip firms which would not welcome a change of ownership of the PowerVR SGX core.
Then there is are also Imagination's other cores, the Meta embedded DSP and the Ensigma digital radio receiver.
Most notably, Apple has a 3.6% shareholding stake in Imagination Technologies and like Intel it has been steadily increasing its technology links with Imagination over the last 12 months resulting in a full technology licence for its PowerVR 3D graphics accelerator.
Intel may want to take control of the PowerVR SGX processor architecture which would give it the embedded graphics capability it needs.
But it knows any takeover bid is likely to result in a wider bidding war for the UK graphics company.