Imagination Technologies put up for sale amid Apple dispute

ChuckMcM 9 years ago |

I feel like Imagination Tech can't die fast enough. These guys aggressively created patent clouds around anything and everything 3D graphic. It wasn't until a lot of the base patents on 3D acceleration started expiring that anyone would even consider the move Apple made. I hope that in 5 years we've got SoC's with fully open GPUs that are at least as powerful as the old 3Dfx Voodoo and Nvidia TNT series from the 90s.

kimixa 9 years ago | |

PowerVR have never filed a single patent suit. Are you confused with a different company? Like NVidia [1] or AMD [2] or something?

[1] https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2014/09/04/nvidia-launches-pat... [2] http://www.anandtech.com/show/11101/amd-files-patent-complai...

comex 9 years ago | | |

Perhaps not, but it certainly owns a lot of patents:

https://patents.google.com/?assignee=Imagination+Technologie...

Twin_Snakes 9 years ago | | |

Obviously, every single GPU company has a fuckton of patents. Not having them is a recipe for being sued by everyone else.

dogma1138 9 years ago | |

Nvidia and AMD are doing the same thing. Outside of X86 GPUs are probably the most walled off market, you literally cannot make a GPU today without violating a patent.

wolfgke 9 years ago | | |

> Outside of X86 GPUs are probably the most walled off market

I think FPGAs are more walled off.

rasz 9 years ago | | |

NVidia started to use tiled rendering recently, EDIT: maybe after relevant Imagination patents expired.

IBM 9 years ago |

2017 was the year Apple decided they don't feel like paying for IP anymore.

I can't wait to see how the Qualcomm case plays out. I'm not a lawyer, but the recent Supreme Court decision on Lexmark seems like a huge threat to Qualcomm's business model.

bryanlarsen 9 years ago |

My cynical take: Imagination Tech's legitimate business is vulnerable to an Apple counter-suit. Without that legitimate business weighing it down it would be much more valuable as a patent troll.

icanhackit 9 years ago | |

> it would be much more valuable as a patent troll

Or the threat of a counter-suit is low but they want to weaponize the company out of spite and the low chance of recovering as a producer of new IP. My recollection might be off but didn't Apple want to purchase Imagination but Imagination wanted to remain an independent company, so Apple hired away their talent instead? Or am I confusing this with what they did to Nuance?

frou_dh 9 years ago |

Wonder if Apple's inhouse GPUs will turn out as well as their CPUs. It's gotta be a hell of a gig to land to work on either.

faragon 9 years ago |

My bet: Apple will buy Imagination Technologies.

sweden 9 years ago | |

It would be illegal after the announcement that they would stop buying Imagination's GPUs. Imagination's value tanked after, they wouldn't be allowed to buy it.

faragon 9 years ago | | |

Not necessarily, e.g. if the takeover has a prime high enough for matching previous stock price. Or buying IT for cheap, without using any of their chips, just for having their patents.

Grazester 9 years ago |

Google seems to be interested in hardware, hiring an ex Apple chip designer. Maybe they would be interested in this sale.

samfisher83 9 years ago | |

For 500 mil it should be a no brainier. Its like a rounding error for google.

rwmj 9 years ago | | |

ImgTech has been a bit of a basket case for a long time. Why did they buy MIPS for $100m? Why have they just (last year) built a huge posh new HQ when they were losing money? I don't think it's something Google would want.

fordred 9 years ago | | |

As a former employee of PowerVR, work began around the start of 2011, and was done in (at least) 3 phases. They finished the 2nd phase around the start of 2014, but I'm not sure when the final phase was completed. Plans were definitely made during the golden-years.

thrillgore 9 years ago |

Edit: I misspoke, I had the wrong company in my sights. Sorry folks.

kimixa 9 years ago | |

Got a source on that? As far as I'm aware Imagination have never been in the controller/haptic feedback market.

EDIT: Are you thinking of "Immersion" [1]? Completely different company.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immersion_v._Sony

cfraenkel 9 years ago | |

Damn, you got my hopes up. I think you're confusing these guys with "Immersion", who were the haptic feedback people.