STM pulls the plug on Kyro

Intel could use a new graphics core to go with their integrated chipsets. And they have the fabbing capacity and $$$.

 

... not to mention what the bandwidth savings f tile tech could do for integrated graphics.

 

Matrox or BitBoys?

Heheheheh j/k needed some Friday humor on a sad topic.

 

I'd like to see AMD getting involved there.

Right now I just hope that the next Kyro generation is not affected by this.

 

How much would that business be sold for?

Would Hercules take the risk? I doubt it.

This is ripe for someone who has stated an interest and wants what is a very big headstart into the market with a proven technology.

If I was a VIA executive, I'd be on the phone with STM right now.

Intel......now they have the dollars but if they bought it I doubt they would be interested in pushing the technology beyond that of integrated chipsets.

AMD....likewise.

Sony? They have their heads too far up their "emotion engine" bottoms

ATI....It would stregthen their position no-end assuming that they are no where near as advanced in terms of a deferred renderer architecture.

others? dunno......but the best fit has to be VIA at least on paper at this point...

 

Please, everyone except nvidia. I want more than two players in the 3d market.

 

Hey Teasy....

Get out the salt, pepper, and catsup! I hope you have a big appetite.

 

It certainly doesn't look good for Kyro3 unfortunately, so Teasy... what was it you say again?

 

It's time to give away some Chianti I have in wine cellar
You can provide fava Joe..
(byw, it's fun to know that in italian 'fava' also could have the meaning of the part of himself Teasy wants to eat..hehehe )

ciao,
Marco

 

Yeah other companies with no track record for ever even having a graphics chip on the market never mind a successful one were looking for partners and failed. However IMGTEC have had a total of 6 PC graphics cards, one console and 2 arcade machines built on their tech, thats a totally different prospect to someone like Bitboys.

Also what do you mean they were lucky? I suppose they were walking along, tripped on some TBR tech that just happened to be lying in the street and then bumped in to NEC who just happened to be drunk and decided on a wim that they would partner with IMGTEC and make some graphics chips (because of course IMGTEC would never have gotten to partner such a great company as NEC otherwise right?). Then when that was finished, oh they got some more "luck" when they met ST at a party Luck has nothing to do with it, they have a great tech and a good record for developing innovative graphics designes and delivering on them and thats why they get partners.. other companies that were looking for partners had records for PR and never delivering a product and thats why they don't get partners (or don't get reliable ones anyway).

Oh don't worry, if Kyro III isn't out by... when was it?.. August, then I will be eating my penis, when I make a bet I stick to it, oh and your right I would have to have an extremely large appitite

But don't think you've won your bet yet mate. AFAIK Kyro III is just about finished (the design was finished quite a while ago AFAIK). So the only thing that could possibly have stopped ST getting it out by Arpil/May is lack of ambition (surely 0.13 would be ready long before then), as in not making the job a priority ect. Now if a company comes in and buys ST's graphics division and there more ambitious then ST then this could actually help me as they could put a higher priority on getting Kyro III out of the door.. so don't count your chickens until they've hatched

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Teasy on 2002-02-08 15:46 ]</font>

 

What hercules have said about all this

->http://www.clubic.com/n/n5113.html

--->
Nous avons contacté Hercules en la personne de Christophe Urbanik pour connaître la position du principal fabricant de cartes graphiques à base de chips Kyro.

Hercules n'arrêtera pas la production de produits à base de chips Kyro et continuera avec l'éventuel repreneur. Les ventes des 3D Prophet 4000XT et 3D Prophet 4500 sont d'ailleurs toujours au beau fixe.
A la question "y a-t-il un rapport entre le partenariat avec ATI et l'annonce ST Microelectronics ?" la réponse de Hercules a été formelle : "non".
Il apparait clairement que du coté de La Gacilly on en sait un peu plus sur les suites de l'annonce de ST Microelectronics mais que le fabricant breton laisse le soin au géant franco-italien ou à Imagination Technologies de dévoiler eux-mêmes les dessous de cette annonce pour le moins surprenante.

Hercules reste donc optimiste sur l'avenir des produits Kyro et nous attendons une réponse de ST Microelectronics pour vous en dire plus.
----->

I don't translate it because my english is not so good, but it's good news !!!!

 

Anyone willing to guess how much such a purchase is worth?

Oh and Wavey said :

That's pretty stupid of them, isn't it? "didn't realise", LOL! Sounded stupid *and* desperate to get into the market.

 

General rule of thumb, AFAIK, is ten times the current profits. Dunno how profitable that part of the business was.

 

Heh, that is always good advice. On the other hand, I think many of your assumptions (on the readiness of 0.13, the "only" reason for lack of delivery is lack of ambition...), are just that, assumptions.

And while I'm happy "the bet" seems to be going my way, I am certainly unhappy that this is happening. But perhaps there is a silver lining here...

...I agree with the posts that are critical of IMG's licensing business model for the desktop-graphics market. I think that if PowerVR is to be successfully resurrected, then IMG should buy the STM Graphics division themself, and start making their own chips. I hope IMG/VideoLogic takes this opportunity to do what needs to be done. Otherwise, I fear we might be seeing the last of PowerVR in the desktop market.

 

Well, um, was this profitable business for STM in the first case?

 

A but now your assuming that that is an assumption on my part.. you shouldn't assume that as it may not be

It'd be nice if that happened but its not going to happen IMO.

Is that total revenue or might that be profit? Because I can't see how that could be total revenue, they sold over 1 million Kyro chips, so unless there were selling them for under $15 each then they had to have made more then that. Perhaps they were selling Kyro 1 for $15 each once Kyro II came along, but I'd imagine at the start when Kyro was $100+ they'd have been selling each chip for more like $25-$30 surely and when Kyro II came out and it started selling for around $130 I'd also imagine they'd be selling those chips for at least $30 as well (obviously getting cheaper as the cards started to sell for $90 then $70 and finally $60.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Teasy on 2002-02-08 16:08 ]</font>

 

Well, that was primarily the reason for the bet! To see who's "assumptions" were more or less correct.

But if you have evidence that "lack of ambition" is the only reason wht we don't see KyroIII on the shelf today, I'm all ears!

 

BTW for who's process was the KyroIII being developed? If it was for STM will they still fab it? Or does it have to be retargeted? (How long would that take? Or did they never even get to the layout?)

Marco

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: MfA on 2002-02-08 16:04 ]</font>

 

Marco, Kyro III is being targetted at TSMC's 0.13 micron process.

 

well SIS might be there but having the targeted process being TSMC's would put them out of interest...

to see K3 being made to desktop, the only few purchaser left seems to be...

IMG.
Herc.
VIA.
SiS (with a lot fo delay)
NEC (note they are still making their own brand of gfx chips/cards in japan, a few of those can be seem in spec's database.)

AMD aint going to be interested.

BTW there are a lot of i830MG notebooks out already. So if anyone cares, they can test some of kryo's launch demos to see if they are indeed using TBR, some so sort of deferred rendering arch.