Well, presumably they would keep license to some of the IP as well, like the rights to continue to use Xilleon IP in Radeon products. But the engineers and where applicable the locations, presumably go to the buyer.
I find it hard to beleive that they would sell off any core ATi tech in this manner, although that said "handheld xenos" is more of marketing BS than fact imo...Where Xenos tech is in the handheld part, ghu only knows how engineers for that get split up, if they do at all or instead just stay with AMD but license to continue using the tech goes to the buyer.
Who knows, they might even back license for support and new versions down the road. That might make it even more attractive to a buyer --built in long-term contract revenue.
Why not? If you don't make it yourself anymore and still need it, then where are you going to get it? ATI used to own fabs. They don't anymore. . . so that precludes them from getting fab services elsewhere? It better not, or they're out of business.
And no, it's not just marketing FUD; it's obviously modified quite a lot and trimmed down, but there's still a clear lineage. So that'll complicate the situation for the acquirer. What's more interesting though is what it'll mean for the IP market if ATI is acquired by, say, Qualcomm or another wireless company that wouldn't be willing to take part in the IP model. That means current licensees would switch to PowerVR's SGX and ARM's Mali in the long-term...
My assumption is that they are divesting themselves of everything to do with handheld, that includes the IP part of the business, do you know differently?
John.
Puh-lease. That's like complaining about the fact G86/RV610 because they're so slow yet trick the customer into thinking they'll get "DX10-level visuals/performance". If OEMs/carriers were dumb enough to directly advertise the XBox360 lineage as a major marketing point (or even just highlight it in feature list), then you might have a point. But it's very very unlikely that ever happens, so I really don't see the problem.Sorry but irrespective of the lineage claims like this are marketing fud that have the sole intent of making the uniformed masses think they are getting something that will deliver xbox360 visuals/performance, when in fact it will do nothing of the sort.
Yeah, Qualcomm and ST are by far the most likely. The IP houses aren't rich enough to buy this, and neither would they have any good reason to do so. Their other major licensee is Freescale BTW (and Nokia, but I don't know how that aligns with their current chip strategy if at all). I guess another possibility is Samsung, because I'm sure they'd like to expand their handheld chip division and they might also be interested in the DTV stuff.It will be interresting to see who/if somone buys the business, alhought the prime contenders to buys are I think the only licenses that ATi had (Qualcomm and ST, where there anymore?). So there's probably only one new licensing opportunity going to come out of this, but it could obviously mean less competition going forward.
There's a big difference in making claim for something that has a perf difference of say an single order of mgnitude and one that is perhaps three orders of magnitude slower. Its fud, there's nothing else to it.Puh-lease. That's like complaining about the fact G86/RV610 because they're so slow yet trick the customer into thinking they'll get "DX10-level visuals/performance". If OEMs/carriers were dumb enough to directly advertise the XBox360 lineage as a major marketing point (or even just highlight it in feature list), then you might have a point. But it's very very unlikely that ever happens, so I really don't see the problem.
Yeah, Qualcomm and ST are by far the most likely. The IP houses aren't rich enough to buy this, and neither would they have any good reason to do so. Their other major licensee is Freescale BTW (and Nokia, but I don't know how that aligns with their current chip strategy if at all). I guess another possibility is Samsung, because I'm sure they'd like to expand their handheld chip division and they might also be interested in the DTV stuff.
Well, I know that they won't sell very many video cards if they can't show HD video on them. How do you expect them to do that if they've "sold off the IP" and the engineers who created it both?
You're assuming the DTV engineers aren't going with the sale then. Why would you assume that? What purpose do they have to keep them for a lesser total addressable market thus even increasing the opex/revenue ratio in a worse way than from before the sale.
Surely decreasing opex is a major consideration in this decision.