PowerVR - Eurasia

Roger Kohli

Newcomer
http://www.imgtec.com/News/Release/index.asp?ID=247

17 May 2005

Imagination Technologies Group plc, (“Imagination Technologiesâ€￾), a leader in system-on-chip intellectual property (SoC IP), announces that Intel Corporation (“Intelâ€￾) has licensed both a member of its new generation, fully programmable PowerVR graphics and video processing IP family, codenamed Eurasia, and a next generation multi-standard video codec (video encode and decoder) IP core.

Intel has previously licensed PowerVR MBX family graphics and associated video and display cores.

Under the terms of its licensing arrangements, Imagination Technologies receives licence fees and royalty revenues on SoCs incorporating Imagination Technologies’ IP shipped by partners.

This new licence agreement has been concluded during the current financial year.

About PowerVR’s Eurasia Technologies

Imagination Technologies’ PowerVR division has a new highly scalable and programmable graphics and video IP family, codenamed Eurasia, under development. This family is based on Imagination Technologies’ new advanced shading technology, offering state-of-the-art features for multimedia devices, and sets the technology benchmark significantly ahead of current offerings. The scalability of the Eurasia family supports a broad range of applications including those in mobile, consumer and computing segments. These cores will co-exist alongside the PowerVR MBX family, members of which are currently being integrated in a variety of devices including mobile handhelds, car navigation and entertainment systems. Further details about the PowerVR Eurasia family will be announced as appropriate.
 
Kristof, would it be safe to assume we wont see any products based on Eurasia for 12-18 months? We still haven't seen too much based on MBX so far (one or two products) and that was licenced years ago.
 
The blurb quoted by Roger I think is quite interesting. It seems to go to great lengths to explain that eruasia is not MBX, or even for the most part MBX like. But rather that it compliments the MBX family.

Makes you wonder what segment of the market it is targeted at.

Perhaps Intel is getting an integrated graphics that is WGF2.0 ready?
 
Perhaps it's MBX2, but it's not being officially unveiled as part of their product line yet. The co-existence with MBX that was mentioned is probably to reaffirm the first MBX's continued viability in light of this announcement since the first generation is about to hit the market in new waves of product.

Immediately establishing the Intel licensing for the next generation sets the lead for the market again.
 
The scalability of the Eurasia family supports a broad range of applications including those in mobile, consumer and computing segments.
Integrated mobo graphics seems covered by this.

I'd assume that "Eurasia" would effectively deprecate MBX Pro, which no-one seems to have licensed anyway.

I'd further assume a handheld gaming device is one of the targets. Hmm N-Gage 3...
 
Or maybe this is separate product line to MBX and is targeted to get them into new market segments, like integrated graphics as mentioned. The wording, and comments made in their last investor update, seem to suggest something more along this line.
 
The scalability of the Eurasia family supports a broad range of applications including those in mobile, consumer and computing segments

I found this part very interesting, too. So not only the mobile parts are the target but also the computing segment which I would translate into PC!

So IMHO maybe Intel has licenced Eurasia also for graphics North bridges. That would be _THE_ killer if true.
 
Killer-Kris said:
The blurb quoted by Roger I think is quite interesting. It seems to go to great lengths to explain that eruasia is not MBX, or even for the most part MBX like. But rather that it compliments the MBX family.

Makes you wonder what segment of the market it is targeted at.

Perhaps Intel is getting an integrated graphics that is WGF2.0 ready?

It seems to imply that it is directed away from the mobile markets.
 
amk said:
The scalability of the Eurasia family supports a broad range of applications including those in mobile, consumer and computing segments.
Integrated mobo graphics seems covered by this.

I'd assume that "Eurasia" would effectively deprecate MBX Pro, which no-one seems to have licensed anyway.

I'd further assume a handheld gaming device is one of the targets. Hmm N-Gage 3...

Question would be if there's a difference between MBX and MBX PRO, apart from clockspeed that I'm not aware of. If the latter should be the case, then the 90nm derivative TI has been mentioned to be fabricating right now should exceed the claimed specs for MBX PRO on PowerVR's homesite.


The blurb quoted by Roger I think is quite interesting. It seems to go to great lengths to explain that eruasia is not MBX, or even for the most part MBX like. But rather that it compliments the MBX family.

Makes you wonder what segment of the market it is targeted at.

Perhaps Intel is getting an integrated graphics that is WGF2.0 ready?

Embedded/integrated multimedia and graphics aren't obviously limited only to PDAs and mobile phones as constantly new markets emerge.

If you guys flip back a couple of years ago, you'll see that INTEL was the first adopter of MBX from the top 10 semiconductors and that quite a lot earlier than anyone else.

I won't exclude any possibilities at this stage, but so far I cannot see any signs that large semiconductors would dip a toe into highly risky markets such as the PC desktop graphics market.

Other than that there are more than one strategic partnerships on an IP licensing level being closed lately considering amongst others multimedia devices and not only. Recent paradigm being the NVIDIA/SONY deal which doesn't sound to me like a license that deals exclusively with one console graphics core.

IMHO the upstream IP licensing lately sees in general is obviously a heaven-sent gift for IMG and of course opens a multitude of opportunities and not just for PowerVR, yet also for Metagence/Ensigma and of course PURE Digital which seems to consistently build up it's brand name, especially in the UK and with DAB powered devices.
 
Lazy8s said:
Or maybe this is separate product line to MBX and is targeted to get them into new market segments, like integrated graphics as mentioned. The wording, and comments made in their last investor update, seem to suggest something more along this line.

I'm too bored to look up when the initial Intel license for MBX Lite had been announced; yet if you bother calculate the time it needed for that core IP to be realized in a final product from Intel (ie Carbonado). It doesn't necessarily need to take as long, but an announcement of a licensing agreement doesn't necessarily suggest final silicon nor even further products based on this very IP to be incorporated this year.



The scalability of the Eurasia family supports a broad range of applications including those in mobile, consumer and computing segments. These cores will co-exist alongside the PowerVR MBX family, members of which are currently being integrated in a variety of devices including mobile handhelds, car navigation and entertainment systems.


See above. To sustain a specific market presence/persentage development and releases must be continious and uninterrupted. Unless a company decides to back out of any specific market, it's pretty normal that products from varying generations co-exist in the offered product palette of each company. Nothing new or miraculous either.

Again I wouldn't exclude any of the potential future partners to think of expanding into other markets too, but this does sound for the time being like an MBX successor, with all the possible markets the IP can address.


...Eurasia...

Someone at IMG must definitely have some sort of weakness for greek and latin terminology. Ok folks if you're in trouble finding a new future core name you may want to also consider Hippocambus *snicker*
 
I tried to discover a little something to make me sweeter
Oh baby refrain from breaking my heart
I'm so in love with you
I'll be forever blue
That you give me no reason, why you're making me work so hard
That you give me no, that you give me no, that you give me no, that you give me no . . . Soul...... I hear you calling
Oh baby please......... give a little respect... toooo meeeee!

Oh sorry that was Erasure not Eurasia :LOL:
 
http://www.eet.com/news/latest/show...d=15YR0NHDIYC1AQSNDBESKHA?articleID=163104631

LONDON — Intel Corp. has licensed a PowerVR graphics and video processing IP core architecture, codenamed "Eurasia," and a next-generation multistandard video codec core from Imagination Technologies Group plc, the U.K.- based company said.
Intel (Santa Clara, Calif.) has previously licensed PowerVR MBX graphics and associated video and display cores from Imagination (Kings Langley, England), a developer of graphics processing intellectual property.

Under development now, the Eurasia architecture includes advanced shading technology, Imagination said. The architecture is intended to be scalable to allow it to produce numerous instantiations to address applications in the mobile, consumer and computing segments.

PowerVR Eurasia cores will co-exist with the PowerVR MBX family, members of which are currently being integrated in a variety of devices, including mobile handhelds, car navigation and entertainment systems, the company said.

Really is starting to look like a graphics core that can be used anywhere fro mobile to high end arcade megapower systems. Scalability has always something the PowerVR team have strived for.
 
I don't see how you inferred "high end arcade megapower" from that article.

It occurs to me that as Intel licensed a hardware codec along with Eurasia, that Intel may be intending to have the two cores work together, implying some kind of set-top-box/mobile entertainment solution from Intel, rather than PC.
 
Sounds reasonable. MBX has been targeted at set-top but only seen in automotive and handheld systems so far, so that would be a new market segment for them to get back in.
 
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