Imagination Technologies up for sale [2017]

The 10nm is not as great as marketing material would lead you to believe. There is reason why many companies skip 10nm alltogether. Let's get back to this once we see other vendors produce 10nm socs and have comparisons on how apple compares.

 

If I reverse the above reasoning then IMG would have allowed Apple to buy them if they needed to *; they didn't. CBFI (the Canyon Bridge subsidiary) doesn't sound like just a simple proposal, for which we'll have to wait and see what IMG's future steps will be after any potential acquisition.

MIPS went to a 3rd company and the remaining IMG wouldn't had been that easy to break up into further pieces since I'd assume that there are connections to PowerVR IP one way or another.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1186...gies-to-be-acquired-by-canyon-bridge-for-550m

***edit: afaik there had been 2 negotiations for a potential sale....

 

I haven't a clue what A11 contains, but both its performance characteristics and the IMG extensions it still uses smell like a direct IMG GPU IP derivative. I think it would be wiser to SECURE first what kind of GPU A11 is using in the first place and then spin its "laurels" at this stage.

 

The formal announcements confirm that there is a second party who as yet has not terminated interest in buying the whole group.

 

I'd be very surprised if that 2nd party (whoever that may be) wouldn't have any ties to China.

 

Sure, but that still doesn't explain why they didn't license for instance select IP if there were any grey areas, or why they don't buy IMG now that it was put up for sale, or...
They stated publicly years ago that they were developing proprietary graphics IP. You can argue that they have failed (or will fail as there is still a year more to go) to do so, but the burden of proof lies on whoever makes that claim. I'm willing to wager that Apple has simply done what they said they would. Their statements and actions make sense.

 

I'd like to stand corrected, but I don't think a sale was possible after the dispute started. In the grander scheme of things it doesn't really matter, what I keep here in the back of my mind is that IMG didn't want to get acquired or better absorbed by Apple and vanish within the latter. Everything they've been chasing after the last few years is in some way connected to China and correctly so IMHO.

As for everything else: if Apple's own GPU IP surfaces and IMG's claims are absurd then it'll put a completely different light on the story. In any contrary case where Apple is actually violating patents and IP we'll have to pick it up then from there.

 

The following extract of the sale proposal is interesting.

If the statement accurately reflects the message that was given, then A11 is paying royalities.

 

Is that calendar year or fiscal year?

 

Well it coincides with their statement earlier this year regarding IMG where they said as early as 2018 they would no longer be required to make any licensing payments.

 

Also confirmed in the legal docs prepared by Clifford Chance who are acting for IMG.

 

ARM ready to swoop on Imagination if Chinese takeover blocked
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/09/25/arm-ready-swoop-imagination-chinese-takeover-blocked/

 

I'd have a long hard laugh if the deal with Canyon Bridge gets blocked and it ends up at ARM. Block the chinese and swing it into japanese hands; sounds like a masterplan. With all due respect if any past UK governent had the slightest clue what they're losing, they wouldn't had allowed ARM to get sold in the first place. It was the only large successful tech firm the UK still had. IMG compared to that is just small fish, meaning that if any government should suddenly "care" for IMG now it'll build a huge oxymoron or I'll just call it "way too little, way too late".

 

I’ll say this though - if ARM picks up IMG, then the odds are good that whatever key IP IMG owns may actually see some decent use, to the extent that it can be utilized in ARMs IP offerings. Which is better than showing up in a few chinese low end phones and languishing in a drawer until it passes its best by date. Ultimately these corporate shufflings are mostly of interest to capital investors. The domain of ideas, designs, and the people who produce them is more important. If there is still a well functioning gfx design group within IMG that can be kept intact that’s great, but what investors hold the shares of the legal entities that claim ownership to patents - who cares where those offices are? Money is global, it will shift its formal residence to Nigeria the moment it’s advantageous. It won’t impact where the chesterfield lounge furniture is situated for the money people to plant their butts in after a day at the office, nor will it matter to the techs in the trenches churning out the Next Great Thing.

 

You'd be suprised but I will admit that IMG should have never stopped co-operating with ARM after the MBX. Other than that it's been a long time since I heard anything but up to that stage to be best of my knowledge (always hearsay...) no severe persentage of relevant engineering talent left the company. All the well known folks that had left for Apple might have had GPU related patents filed under their name but that decades ago. Working in the upper management doesn't obviously equal active engineering of any sort.

That said point accepted; it would eventually bring the specific GPU IP into the majority of Android devices. My point was rather political and way OT for this board. But the UK government isn't the only one that wouldn't care in such a case.....

 

We are going back in history, but I'm not sure who was the chicken and who was the egg. I recall the breaking of the ARM/IMG arrangment happened pretty much at the same time that ARM bought Falanx.

 

Definitely not before and not within the same timeframe. It didn't take ARM too long to acquire Falanx that much is true, but it wasn't the next day either. From what I recall IMG notified ARM fairly early that they'll sell their IP themselves after MBX which resulted then to some quite aggressive off the record comments from ARM's upper management, something along the line that they'd sell even their mother for money or something similar.....in any case their future would had been way more secure at least for a specific timeframe and might had avoided their too strong dependence on Apple.

Someone might say that ARM could had dumped IMG also down the line and I wouldn't disagree. But it would had been enough for IMG GPU IP to establish itself in about every ARM device through the SGX era.

Overall the headache in those cases should be that the widest majority of IMG employees should be able to keep their jobs whoever acquires IMG after all.

 

My recollection was that the two things happened pretty much at the same time, and I wondered at the time who got rid of who.
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/06/23/arm_buys_falanx_mobile_gpus/

 

IMG decided to license its graphics IP by itself first, from what I recall. For years PR stunts had been close to ridiculous. One introduced a blue ribbon while if not the same day then next day the other one showed the world's first blue ribbon with cheese

On a side note I'm too bored to find the proper thread for it: http://www.fudzilla.com/news/mobile/44609-mediatek-announces-new-entry-level-mt6739-chipset ....better late than never huh?