Teasy said:
But to answer your question. Think about it for a moment, they didn't release ps/vs 3.0 demo's for Kyro right?.. so why else would they release them? They released them to get people talking about next gen PowerVR GPU's supporting ps/vs 3.0. After all they're not going to develop these demo's on ATI or Nvidia's cards (they couldn't if they wanted too). So that gets people thinking "they must have developed them of there own pixel shader/vertex shader 3.0 hardware". They also want people to think "they're releasing the new demo's.. they must be doing that to get ready for reviews of there new hardware". Basically its a subtle PR excercise.
There are other possible scenarios.
Since they are an IP company, they publicly announce when their designs are liscensed. As with the Series4, and the MBX so far, they announce the deals they strike, and the licensee may or may not use the IP to build a physical part.
There has been no licensee announced for the Series5 apart from STM back in 2001. STM subsequently cancelled the Series4, and buried the mobile gaming platform. I quote from their 2002 press-release:
STMicroelectronics To Withdraw From PC Graphics Market
GENEVA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 8, 2002\226-STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM - news) has announced that it is withdrawing from the PC Graphics Accelerator IC market and is currently seeking a buyer for the related assets and activities of its PC Graphics business, which accounted for approximately $15 million of ST's $6.36 billion revenues in 2001.
To my knowledge, no buyer was ever found.
At that point the Series5 was, in all likelyhood, well underway and PowerVR continued development of the part. No new licensee has presented iteself however, and so now they try to get what they can out of their effort. Publishing papers and giving talks on PS/VS 3.0 techniques as well as releasing demos serves to keep them on the map as 3D-gfx development house. It also serves the purpose of letting their engineers present themselves and their work and gain a bit of peer recognition.
So while "a subtle PR excercise" might well be a good description, it might just as well describe actions taken due to the absense of enterprising licensees for the Series5. Since they have no current hardware on the market, they can do this without detracting attention from existing offerings.
Is this scenario less likely than the one you paint?