Apple going with IMG for years to come ?

tangey said:
Ailuros,

I started this thread on the back of a license announcement made by IMG in Sept '08, which I identified as being Apple. Basically that license said that Apple has now a license on a very broad range of current and future IMG IP. given Apples secrecy, the broad nature of this announcement means that it diminishes the likeilhood of any future Apple-related license announcements having to be made.

For completeness here is a link to the original license announcement.

http://www.imgtec.com/News/Release/index.asp?NewsID=392
Click to expand...

My own highlights in that quote were targeting "new partners" for one and on the other hand "We are also seeing an active pipeline of interest in our technologies for future years.". The latter doesn't sound to me like just one partner or more specifically in this case "just" Apple.

You are right of course about the unlikeliness of Apple-related license announcements, but the Multi-core Expo must have triggered some added interest.
 
Arun said:
Okay, sorry guys - new data made me change my mind. iPhone coming out in June is very likely based on the same SoC as the iPod Touch 2G (different one as the iPhone 3G though, remember! just look at the firmware hacking websites...) - but I also suspect the Touch 2G SoC already supports video encoding, FWIW. The only possible changes would be in terms of connectivity chips, baseband, and the camera. Royalty revenue for IMG should be similar.

DigiTimes is hinting at the existence of a higher-end model later this year with a 5MP camera, which I presume to be the one with SGX/VXD. I suspect the 3.2MP sensor they are talking about is http://www.ovt.com/uploads/parts/OV3640_PB(1.01)_web.pdf and the 5MP one is http://www.ovt.com/uploads/parts/OV5642_PB(1.0)_web.pdf - it's worth noting both of those have integrated ISPs...

One thing that disturbs me is that a phone shipping in July 2009 won't be able to use Infineon's 65nm baseband. So either they're sticking to the exact same baseband as in the iPhone 3G (and still won't support HSUPA because of the RF chip) or they're changing supplier. InterDigital is out of the running, so the only real options I can see for a moderately slim baseband are ST-Ericsson, Qualcomm, and Icera. I can't see them switching to Qualcomm, and I'd be (positively, mind you!) surprised by Icera. So I can only see ST-Ericsson left, which would be intriguing but I'm still slightly skeptical; sticking to the old-gen Infineon solution seems more likely to me.

As for WiFi, CSR's 65nm chip wouldn't be ready either (would be for the high-end model later though) so I can only see the same Broadcom solution as in the iPod Touch 2G again. Alternatively, maybe Marvell's new 150Mbps 802.11n chip for embedded - certainly would explain the "faster internetz!!!" rumours :)

EDIT: I also obviously apologize for how many times I've had to change my predictions - I think everyone will agree Apple isn't the easiest company to track though... ;)
Click to expand...
Hm, a two model summer/Christmas normal/pro iPhone strategy? Interesting, I didn't think Apple would go down this route. But good for Palm if this summer's iPhone offers only a storage/camera upgrade.
 
Not sure it's fair to say 'just storage/camera'. First remember that SoC runs at ~600MHz instead of ~400MHz, and as I said I suspect it supports video encoding. As for the camera it's not just more pixels but also much better signal processing. The WiFi chip might (or might not) go to 1x1 802.11n. Finally, if the rumours are true it should support HSUPA (which makes me curious about the baseband) and be thinner. Oh, and there OS 3.0 too...

As for releasing twice a year - remember in terms of unit share, Apple is still fairly small; they have a lot of room for growth if they get more aggressive... Think about it this way: many people have been expecting a Nano. But in reality, there's nothing about the iPhone that makes it so expensive in the long-term; screen and baseband costs go down naturally. So why not reduce its price to $99 for the minimum capacity version and create a new product line starting at $299 for example? Hardly a better way to improve your line-up, IMO.
 
Arun said:
Not sure it's fair to say 'just storage/camera'. First remember that SoC runs at ~600MHz instead of ~400MHz, and as I said I suspect it supports video encoding. As for the camera it's not just more pixels but also much better signal processing. The WiFi chip might (or might not) go to 1x1 802.11n. Finally, if the rumours are true it should support HSUPA (which makes me curious about the baseband) and be thinner. Oh, and there OS 3.0 too...
Click to expand...
Wasn't it 412MHz vs 532MHz and isn't the iPod Touch SoC still at 90nm?
Of course the new iPhone will be better than the 3G, but now it sounds like the difference will be at the same scale as the iPhone-iPhone3G update.

Arun said:
As for releasing twice a year - remember in terms of unit share, Apple is still fairly small; they have a lot of room for growth if they get more aggressive... Think about it this way: many people have been expecting a Nano. But in reality, there's nothing about the iPhone that makes it so expensive in the long-term; screen and baseband costs go down naturally. So why not reduce its price to $99 for the minimum capacity version and create a new product line starting at $299 for example? Hardly a better way to improve your line-up, IMO.
Click to expand...
If this summer iPhone becomes the new "low-end" model starting at $99 and Apple introduces a Pro model with big improvements in the winter then I'm looking forward to it. Because a Pro version would give Apple the chance to change/upgrade something fundamental like the screen resolution/ratio, buttons or introduce multitasking etc. This "Pro" version of the iPhone OS could then also be used for the rumored iTablet :)
 
Yeah, you're right - it's 532MHz. Oops. As for it still being 90nm, I don't really know; my understanding is none of the teardown guys bothered to check, assuming it was the exact same SoC. Yay?

Anyhow it looks like it's the iPod3,1 that will have 802.11n via the BCM4329 - so it's not clear that the iPhone2,1 announced probably in June will have that change too (but it might), and it looks like the Marvell and CSR SoCs are out of the running.
 
Does 802.11n make sense?

How does the power consumption compare, especially if running at 5 Ghz?

And most public hotspots are still at 802.11g no?
 
802.11n single-stream (i.e. without MIMO) makes perfect sense. I had a very good conversation with someone from CSR at MWC, and came out very impressed (both about CSR and 802.11n). What I say here should mostly also apply to Broadcom product, but I can't be certain about that.

Theoretical speed only goes up slightly, but real-world peak goes from ~20 to ~50Mbps and in bad signal conditions you can still expect a reliable ~30Mbps, which is more than good enough for most 1080p video streaming (not for the best non-transcoded Blurays of course). That is something you absolutely cannot expect to do on 802.11g. Also, having 11g devices on your 11n network is going to hurt everybody so you want all devices to migrate rapidly.

As for power consumption, it should be very good. Regarding hotspots, I guess patience is a virtue... :)
 
I guess.

As it is, any bandwidth-intensive application is best-used with Wifi, not mobile data.

The mobile data roadmap sounds rosy with LTE and such.

But I bet the reality won't be so great and carriers will price faster mobile data in such a way as to discourage intensive use. Probably premium for at least some types of video. Because they would probably need to upgrade not just the base stations but also the backhaul.

Or maybe these companies developing such capable mobile silicon have more faith in carriers than warranted.
 
Yes, 3G/4G's marketing is largely a scam, and unlimited data plans are not sustainable unless you'd try to add a premium for QoS guarantees. Consider this: Verizon only got 20MHz of spectrum depth at 700MHZ; that means the 100Mbps+ of LTE throughput has to be shared by all cell users - and that's before you consider the huge wastes in bad signal conditions.

Even worse, the spectral efficiency gains from HSUPA to HSPA+/LTE come mostly from MIMO and 64QAM, which are only of large benefit in good signal conditions; in bad ones, Rx Diversity is practically equivalent. If you want better real-world throughput you neef many smaller cells, but that is difficult when they need to be maintained by the operator. Femtocells aren't a solution beyond your own usage at this point.

LTE will be good enough for VGA video streaming and basic 720p, and the lower latencies will be nice for web browsing etc., but don't get your hopes up too much IMO... You won't be giving up on your wireline and WiFi anytime soon.
 
Hmm, and Verizon was the biggest winner of the 700Mhz auctions.

They were crowing about rolling out LTE early and getting service out to some rural areas which they've never served before.

Maybe if all these carriers built one network together and shared it instead of redundantly cherry-pick the most profitable metros, ending up with several networks layered on top of each other, with no single network having the best coverage.

But that would be too efficient and not sufficiently proprietary.

I don't know why users are so big on streaming or downloading over the air as opposed to sideloading. You're going to have to hook the thing up to charge it (and in the case of the iPhone and products with even more powerful chips, you're going to have to charge often) anyways and the data transfer time is less than the charge time.

A sideloaded video could probably be at much higher bitrate than a streamed one. That is where better video silicon makes sense.
 
Yeah. Remember that's just the new spectrum though; down the road they can switch 2G/3G spectrum to LTE. But the costs will remain high, and I agree you won't get away from sideloafing for anything above a few Mbps... And as you say charging makes that attractive anywsy if the user realizes what's going on.

Ceetainly online games with low latency/high bandwidth (even 1Mbps+) requirements are going to be a breeze on LTE, which is nice for 3D... :) Surely that should help the GPU attach rates, although I'll be very curious to see what the killer app is like and how the controls work.

Anyway down the road (i.e. for LTE Advanced or the like) I don't see how we'll get away from user-installed super-femtos with a range of up to 1Km perhaps. The only question is how does the wireline bandwidth come in; FTTH is still expensive, but you need at least 100Mbps for this to make sense. And what about spectrum? If a 'carrier' needs to buy it, where does it make the money to amortize it? Fun stuff!
 
tangey said:
I've seen the first indication that iphone 3.0 firmware supports OpenGL es2.0. If true this would mean that its designed to support a platform that has something other than an MBX 3D graphics accelerator, presumably that would be SGX.

"The final 3.0 firmware is said to support OpenGL ES v2.0"

http://www.boygeniusreport.com/2009...screenshots-leak-out/comment-page-3/#comments
Click to expand...

Really ?

Not in their SDK .... the only change they did was to include stencil buffer support.
 
warmi said:
Really ?

Not in their SDK .... the only change they did was to include stencil buffer support.
Click to expand...

Ummm isn't the 3.0 SDK beta supposed to be under an NDA ?


My posting cited BGR as a source, which was talking about the features that had been discovered by scanning 3.0 firmware, not documented feautres of the new SDK. Clearly if they want to play their cards close to their chest, Apple would not expose the new hardware features of an alledged new iphone in an SDK beta. I havn't seen anyone mentioning anything about video record/playback support in the 3.0SDK, and yet that is being very widely rumoured to be in a june iphone.

Or of course BGR could be totally wrong.
 
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