Imagination Technologies Group, a leading developer of graphics processing technologies, said this week that had signed a license agreement with a “major international consumer electronics company”, for a high-performance forthcoming member of Imagination’s PowerVR SGX graphics processor family.

Neither exact terms of the deal nor the name of the partner were disclosed in ImgTec’s press releases, however, according to rumours cited by EETimes web-site, the PowerVX SGX 550-series graphics technology will power the successor to Sony PlayStation Portable video game console, which may carry the name of “PlayStation Portable 2”.

“Imagination expects that this significant agreement with the new partner will extend the reach of its PowerVR technology into another high-volume consumer device segment,” a statement by the company reads.

Earlier this year Imagination signed a license agreement with another “major consumer electronics company” and it was speculated that the company was Apple.

The original PSP has proprietary graphics chip that features “Rendering engine”, “Surface engine” as well as “3D curved surface” and “3D polygon” engines. It is important for Sony to maintain compatibility between PSP games and PSP2 console. However, since modern graphics technologies are very complex, the company may sacrifice that compatibility in favour of more advanced graphics processing technologies.

Under the terms of its licensing arrangements Imagination receives license fees, and royalty revenues on shipment of system-on-chips incorporating Imagination's intellectual property.

Imagination and Sony did not comment on the news-story.

Tags: Imagination, Sony, PowerVR, Playstation, PlayStation Portable