Companies extend close relationship for future-generation OWL chipsets

ZHUHAI, China and BARCELONA, Spain, Feb. 24, 2014 — (PRNewswire) —   Imagination Technologies (IMG.L) and Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (Nasdaq: ACTS), one of China's leading fabless semiconductor companies, are extending their collaboration in bringing advanced graphics to a range of Actions' OWL chipsets which are designed to address each segment of the tablet market. Actions is leveraging Imagination's PowerVR graphics in multiple generations of its OWL chipsets, including ATM7021, ATM7039 and ATM7029B, and will continue to use PowerVR for future generations.

Already reaching significant volume shipments following its release six months ago, Actions' ATM7021 chipset leverages a PowerVR SGX540 GPU, and brings advanced performance and multimedia capabilities to entry-level tablets. The company's high-performance ATM7039 chipset, featuring a PowerVR SGX544MP GPU and dual channel 64-bit DDR, offers a high level of performance for high-end Android tablets.

Actions' newest quad-core solution, the ATM7029B, features a PowerVR SGX540 GPU and supports Android 4.4. Built in MIPI, the ATM7029B offers an attractive price-to-performance ratio for the mid-range market. With PowerVR, Actions is using the industry's leading graphics processors that enable a powerful and flexible solution for all forms of multimedia processing. APIs such as OpenGL ES, OpenCL, RenderScript and FilterScript enable developers to unlock the enormous processing potential of both OpenGL ES graphics and GPU compute delivered by PowerVR IP cores.

Says Dr. Zhenyu Zhou, CEO, Actions Semiconductor, "We are winning significant new business for our innovative and cost-effective tablet chipsets with PowerVR based solutions. By partnering with Imagination Technologies to integrate their highly efficient, world-class PowerVR GPU cores in our OWL Series product family, we offer feature-rich solutions for each segment of the tablet market. We're pleased with the superior technological capability of PowerVR, as well as the great support we receive from Imagination."

Says David McBrien, executive vice president of sales and business development, Imagination, "We believe that leadership in graphics leads to leadership in end products. With high performance, low power consumption, small area and a broad developer base, PowerVR GPUs lead the market for embedded and mobile graphics. We are delighted that an innovative company like Actions is gaining increasing traction in the market with its PowerVR based solutions, and we are working closely with them to ensure they have access to the latest technologies to drive advanced graphics performance."

In its booth number 6E30 at Mobile World Congress, Imagination will feature tablets with Actions' latest PowerVR based chipsets, including the Ramos K6 and Ainol Spark II tablets. Mobile World Congress is being held February 24-28 in Barcelona, Spain.

About Actions Semiconductor
Actions Semiconductor Co., Ltd. (NASDAQ: ACTS) is one of China's leading fabless semiconductor companies that provides comprehensive portable multimedia and mobile internet system-on-a-chip (SoC) solutions for portable consumer electronics. Actions Semiconductor products include SoCs, firmware, software, solution development kits, as well as detailed specifications of other required components. Actions Semiconductor also provides total product and technology solutions that allow customers to quickly introduce new portable consumer electronics to the mass market in a cost effective way. The company is headquartered in Zhuhai, China, with offices in Shanghai and Shenzhen. For more information, please visit the Actions Semiconductor website at  http://www.actions-semi.com.

About PowerVR graphics
Imagination's PowerVR graphics technologies are the de facto standard for mobile and embedded graphics. The PowerVR Rogue architecture is designed to support the features of the latest graphics APIs including OpenGL ES 1.1/2/3.0 and beyond, OpenGL 3.x/4.x, and designed for full WHQL-compliant DirectX 9/10, with certain family members extending their capabilities to DirectX 11.1 functionality. PowerVR Rogue GPUs deliver full support for all popular and emerging GPU compute APIs including OpenCL 1.x and Renderscript, delivering an optimal balance of performance versus power consumption for mobile and embedded devices.

About Imagination Technologies
Imagination is a global technology leader whose products touch the lives of billions of people throughout the world. The company's broad range of silicon IP (intellectual property) includes the key multimedia, communications and general purpose processors needed to create the SoCs (Systems on Chips) that power all mobile, consumer, automotive, enterprise, infrastructure, IoT and embedded electronics. These are complemented by its unique software and cloud IP and system solution focus, enabling its licensees and partners get to market quickly by creating and leveraging highly differentiated SoC platforms. Imagination's licensees include many of the world's leading semiconductor manufacturers, network operators and OEMs/ODMs who are creating some of the world's most iconic and disruptive products. See: www.imgtec.com.

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