Qualcomm buys AMD's handheld graphics & multimedia

[Kaotik]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/mobile...ultimedia_Processor_Business_to_Qualcomm.html

Last year they sold off the DTV business, including Xilleons, to Broadcom ( http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=49603 ), and now AMD has gotten rid of the last(?) mobile/handheld department in the house.

AMDs handheld gfx chips included Imageons and BitBoys's Gxx chips

 

[Nano]

Interesting news. Somehow I didn't expect AMD to keep up this series, I didn't see them really going for it in that market.

 

[Lazy8s]

The BitBoys part alone of that business had cost ATi around US$30M a while back when they bought it, so the overall devaluation is quite marked.

 

[wishiknew]

That BitBoys thing just ticks me off about Nokia and 3D.

 

[manux]

That BitBoys thing just ticks me off about Nokia and 3D.

Care to elaborate more on this one?

edit. this finnish news confirms all ex bitboys move to qualcomm(around 50 people). Saari says that the design of chips is not driven anymore by games but the ui's in smartphones.

 

[Ailuros]

Care to elaborate more on this one?

edit. this finnish news confirms all ex bitboys move to qualcomm(around 50 people). Saari says that the design of chips is not driven anymore by games but the ui's in smartphones.

If the last sentence should be true, then it means that they'll only design mainstream to low end chips for that market from now on.

 

[manux]

If the last sentence should be true, then it means that they'll only design mainstream to low end chips for that market from now on.

I think it should be true for now. Mikko Saari who is quoted saying that is the leader of qualcomm finland.

 

[Lazy8s]

The launch of centralized distribution for applications like the App Store spurs development and therefore visually rich content like games, and the launch of OpenCL also significantly increases the utility of parallel processing units like GPUs.

 

[manux]

The launch of centralized distribution for applications like the App Store spurs development and therefore visually rich content like games, and the launch of OpenCL also significantly increases the utility of parallel processing units like GPUs.

Copy/paste from apple marketing material?

 

[Lazy8s]

The money being generated by games on the iPhone is a very real justification for giving more than just the minimum consideration to a mobile GPU.

 

[Simon F]

edit. this finnish news confirms all ex bitboys move to qualcomm(around 50 people). Saari says that the design of chips is not driven anymore by games but the ui's in smartphones.

Last time I spoke to a couple of their guys, they'd only just finished changing the signs to ATI when they had to replace them with AMD....

 

[Ailuros]

Last time I spoke to a couple of their guys, they'd only just finished changing the signs to ATI when they had to replace them with AMD....

ROTFLMAO

They should really think of using magnetic letters (like the thingies we use for fridges) in order to change them that often *snicker*

I think it should be true for now. Mikko Saari who is quoted saying that is the leader of qualcomm finland.

Frankly I personally prefer reasonable balanced startouts, then a wide load of paper exaggerations that never end up realizing themselves in real hardware.

 

[wco81]

The money being generated by games on the iPhone is a very real justification for giving more than just the minimum consideration to a mobile GPU.

Is there a lot of money being generated for iPhone games?

Other than a few hyped releases, there seems to be a lot of chaff to sort through in the Apps. Store.

In fact, you wonder if the low barrier to entry means there will be too much mediocrity accumulated over time that users will be alienated from the idea of looking for a good game in the Apps. Store.

At least with the DS and PSP, you have experienced game systems companies filtering which content to approve for release on their systems.

 

[Mintmaster]

The money being generated by games on the iPhone is a very real justification for giving more than just the minimum consideration to a mobile GPU.

Not only do I bet that the money is not that much at all, but only a small number of those games need much from a GPU, and the margins on silicon and/or IP would be tiny as well.

It's all small potatoes.

 

[Lazy8s]

A multitude of small developers have found a major source of income they never had and have praised the opportunity the App Store provides them to sell directly to such a large userbase, and some of the large devs of mobile and even set-top/desktop games like Sega Sammy continue to express very favorable opinions of the market.

I actually don't disagree that making the smartphone highly functional through revolutionary GUIs (which is the true success of the iPhone) is the real justification for mobile GPUs; I was just mentioning some other major, emerging uses for mobile graphics.

 

[wco81]

They have to look at games sales over a couple of years to see if there's a real business there.

A lot of it could be curiosity and initial enthusiasm over the Apps. Store.

Sales are probably good to a one-man shop. But major publishers want to see something big.

 

[Simon F]

ROTFLMAO

They should really think of using magnetic letters (like the thingies we use for fridges) in order to change them that often *snicker*

Oh gosh, I didn't mean it to be funny!

 

[Ailuros]

They have to look at games sales over a couple of years to see if there's a real business there.

A lot of it could be curiosity and initial enthusiasm over the Apps. Store.

Sales are probably good to a one-man shop. But major publishers want to see something big.

I don't disagree. However a 3D core in these markets is usually not meant for 3D graphics only and that's something that has been said more than a few times from the birth of GPUs for mobile/PDA markets. The higher the capabilities of a core the more markets it will be able to cover eventually.

A mainstream/low end core might be perfectly fine for a mobile phone with an advanced 3D GUI, but it won't be sufficient for a handheld gaming console for example.

And since you guys touched the GPGPU/OpenCL topic here, heterogenous computing can pose a lot of opportunities for developers in the longrun. As things seem to evolve in the graphics arena in general and since die area, power consumption and bandwidth are amongst the biggest headaches for SoCs it bears the question if and by how much CPU processing power can scale under those constraints and if and by how much a GPGPU capable core can aid the total processing load even if it's just for multimedia content.

Yes OpenCL is most definitely Apple's baby, but IMG on the other hand designed SGX from the get go to also handle GPGPU tasks long before any possible deal with the first had been accomplished. You can either call the latter decision as redundant or consider it simple foresight.

 

[Nano]

The money being generated by games on the iPhone is a very real justification for giving more than just the minimum consideration to a mobile GPU.

I'd say the very idea all iphones and ipod touch' share the same platform give good justification for a dedicated mobile GPU. Applications can actually be developed with the knowledge the baseline specs always incorporate 3d acceleration as a standard. It really will offer richer game experiences visually as more and more apps are made for the platform over time.

 

[wco81]

I'd say the very idea all iphones and ipod touch' share the same platform give good justification for a dedicated mobile GPU. Applications can actually be developed with the knowledge the baseline specs always incorporate 3d acceleration as a standard. It really will offer richer game experiences visually as more and more apps are made for the platform over time.

Some believe, including a developer who published an iPhone/Touch game, that the 2G Touch is clocked higher than the 1G Touch and both the iPhone models.

Some games are said to perform the best on the 2G Touch.

If that's true, then Apple is integrating different silicon but not publicizing them.

I think as with the iPod Classic games, as new models come out, games will have to be updated to work on new models.

Apple probably won't publicize the hardware differences among the iPhone/Touch product lines, unless they segment the lines and decide to introduce higher and lower-priced SKUs differentiated by specs. other than simply storage.