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Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

imgtec.com

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Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#161

Post by amazingman »

kevindqc wrote: post #149
Aaargh20318 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine the new GPU will support the same Metal API. As this is probably something that Apple has been working on for a while now I'd assume that Metal was designed with this new GPU architecture in mind. How much of those tools would need to be updated to a new GPU assuming the current API was specifically written for it ?

But even if the API is the same, it doesn't mean it will have the same performance? Something that was not a problem with previous GPUs could become a bottleneck and vice-versa? And since you need to support both GPUs or else you drop older iPhone support, it might get annoying. I don't really know if that would be the case though, I don't know anything about GPUs.

>But even if the API is the same, it doesn't mean it will have the same performance? Something that was not a problem with previous GPUs could become a bottleneck and vice-versa? And since you need to support both GPUs or else you drop older iPhone support, it might get annoying.

If "in certain cases, the performance profile can be annoyingly different" is the outcome of a tectonic shift in the underlying hardware, it would be a significant and praise-worthy achievement.

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#162

Post by DigitalJack »

Cyph0n wrote: post #160
amelius wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everybody who has programmed in VHDL or Verilog knows that building hardware is very close to writing software actually. It's just a level of abstraction lower, and there is a lot more parallelism, but the concepts are very similar.

Writing HDL is quite similar to software, but the "stack" you deal with is entirely different. It's like saying that writing embedded C is similar to front-end JS (hardware interrupts vs. events, external world vs. DOM, input voltage vs. user input, etc.).

It's more like the difference between writing C and writing a cookbook. As in a kitchen cookbook.

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#164

Post by thecosas »

samfisher83 wrote: post #83
indy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the decrease in share price make them a more attractive acquisition target for Apple?

I think apple already has shares in IMG. This would be huge blow to them since they are their 1 big customer.

Bingo.

"Apple currently holds more than 8 percent of the company."

http://www.theverge.com/2017/4/3/15158982/apple-iphone-gpu-i...

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#167

Post by Cyph0n »

DigitalJack wrote: post #162
Cyph0n wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Writing HDL is quite similar to software, but the "stack" you deal with is entirely different. It's like saying that writing embedded C is similar to front-end JS (hardware interrupts vs. events, external world vs. DOM, input voltage vs. user input, etc.).

It's more like the difference between writing C and writing a cookbook. As in a kitchen cookbook.

Especially if your goal is efficient, synthesizable HDL!

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#168

Post by kingosticks »

mhayenga wrote: post #132

This really isn't news, it's been known for years. A GPU team is based in Austin (knowing Apple, they likely have multiple).

They've also had a load of job adverts out for hardware graphics positions in London over the last few months. I think I read their new team is supposed to based there (but I can't find that source now).

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#169

Post by ldrndll »

lucaspiller wrote: post #84
indy wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the decrease in share price make them a more attractive acquisition target for Apple?

A few years ago I was working for a company which provided value added mobile services to the UK market. The biggest money maker at the time was premium SMS, however we didn't have our own SMS gateway - we just resold services of another provider (which was unbeknown to clients at the time). Shortly after I joined the bosses decided that we were giving away too much money to the provider, so began talks for an acquis…

As soon as I started reading this comment I was thinking "I worked at a company that did the exact same thing!" Ha ha, small world :)

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#170

Post by libv »

robert_foss wrote: post #81

In the GPU space it is impossible to not infringe on the IP of other vendors. In fact it is the major reason GPU vendors give for not having an open source driver. I have spoken to the CTO (Jem Davies) of ARM about the GPU drivers and open sourcing them more than once. And every time I've gotten the reply: "No, we can't, it opens us up to IP infringement suits." Full disclosure: I used to work in the ARM GPU division…

First off, that problem already exists in the hardware, the damage is already done (as i stated in my blog entry http://libv.livejournal.com/26635.html under "the patent excuse").

There was another big smoking gun recently, at linaros conference in budapest. Here finally some truth was spoken at 9:40 into the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPjSm_98rgo&t=580s

Like IMG, ARM is not selling just the hardware design, it is also selling driver development services. When the driver is open source, and competitive, everyone can sell such services, and there's a lot less of those services to sell. ARM has revenue depending on this.

This is one good thing about the IMG revenue coming from Apple, it was mostly licensing costs, not services. If IMG had been selling services on top, their revenue would've been reduced by 75%+ instead of "just" ~50%.

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