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Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement
- dovdovdov 10y agoDoes this mean cheaper iPhones?! (huehuehue)
- trendnet 10y agoJudging by the tone used in that press release, they are in deep trouble. It does not even matter that £60.7 million is a small portion of their business. It could be the opposite of what happened to ARM when Apple decided to put their chips into Newton.
- boogersandstuff 10y agoTheir 2016 annual report notes £120.0m revenue (90 from IP/royalties) and £136.5m in operating expenses with an operating loss of £87.0m. Their new CEO mentions refocusing the company on IP and royalty income. Now Apple, which pays 60% of that income, is ducking out. Ouch. In the same report, they mention "There are no parties with whom the Group has contractual or other arrangements which are essential to the business of the Group except the contract with Apple Inc." All your eggs in one basket... What's funny is in their financial risk assessment they focus on bullshit like investment shifts and outside IP threats, but gloss over the whole "what if that huge contract our company depends on happens to fall apart?" The discussion between Apple and these guys must've really gone south for a nasty and desperate press release like this
- exabrial 10y ago> The discussion between Apple and these guys must've really gone south for a nasty and desperate press release like this That's what I found most intriguing. Why go public with this? (Especially with ongoing litigation)
- macspoofing 10y agoSignalling a potential lawsuit so that Apple enters into a patent licensing agreement.
- winterismute 10y agoUK regulations on stock markets are quite tough, publicly listed companies must share information that could impact the company as soon as they can. Public opinion is pretty susceptible to this too due to events in recent years.
- ksec 10y agoI call this good old fashioned and fair to shareholders. Not tough. Wall Street is basically where you get the worst , and unfair treatment as a shareholder.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- goatforce5 10y agoHinting at possible future litigation (and ultimately winning damages from Apple) is them trying to offer some light at the end of a very dark tunnel.
- _anything_ 10y ago>> What's funny is in their financial risk assessment they focus on bullshit like investment shifts and outside IP threats, but gloss over the whole "what if that huge contract our company depends on happens to fall apart?" Perhaps thats why they've refocused on IP, projects that are actually profitable.
- eps 10y agoApple accounts for one half of their revenue. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-imagntn-tchnlgs-apple-idUSKBN1750HR http://www.reuters.com/article/us-imagntn-tchnlgs-apple-idUS...
- golergka 10y ago> Further, Imagination believes that it would be extremely challenging to design a brand new GPU architecture from basics without infringing its intellectual property rights, accordingly Imagination does not accept Apple’s assertions. I know that designing new GPU from scratch isn't an easy task - but is it THAT hard that they don't trust that one of the richest companies in the world is capable of doing it?
- nottorp 10y agoIntellectual property is complicated - there must be some patent that Apple would infringe anyway. Perhaps the one on breathing...
- H4CK3RM4N 10y agoWould is be possible to patent some "biological respiration and oxygen replenishment" process and start suing babies?
- moomin 10y agoYou might be able to make it stick in East Texas.
- coderjames 10y agoOr PowerVR texture compression, which according to Anandtech is the canonical method for iOS development: "Because Apple’s SoCs have always used GPUs from the same vendor, certain vendor-specific features like PowerVR Texture Compress (PVRTC) are widely used in iOS app development" [0] http://www.anandtech.com/show/11243/apple-developing-custom-gpu-dropping-imagination/2 http://www.anandtech.com/show/11243/apple-developing-custom-...
- Aissen 10y agoThey could easily force change on the app for such change. Look at what they're doing regarding Bitcode and how quickly it might become the default.
- pavlov 10y agoThis is interesting: "Imagination believes that it would be extremely challenging to design a brand new GPU architecture from basics without infringing its intellectual property rights, accordingly Imagination does not accept Apple’s assertions." Could Apple not be using someone else's IP, for example from NVidia or AMD?
- giancarlostoro 10y agoIf licensed to do so, that's how ARM works as far as I've known.
- masklinn 10y agoAMD does not license to third parties, neither does Intel. Options (ignoring acquisition and design from scratch) are: * NVidia's Tegra graphics cores, possibly (not clear whether they block-license let alone architecture-license to third parties) * ARM's Mali, definitely licensable * Broadcom's VideoCore, possibly * Vivante, definitely licensable * Qualcomm's Adreno, formerly Imageon, unlikely Also note that at least two dozen Imagination employees left for Apple between 2015 and 2016 http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/10/13/apple-poaching-gpu-designer-imagination-technologies-talent-hiring-key-personnel-away http://appleinsider.com/articles/16/10/13/apple-poaching-gpu...
- TheAceOfHearts 10y agoI was under the impression all the big modern consoles were using customized AMD GPUs. For example, according to the PS4's Wikipedia entry [0], its GPU is a "Semi-custom AMD GCN Radeon (integrated into APU)". Are those customizations made by AMD for Sony, instead of licensing the technology? I found an article claiming Intel is licensing AMD GPU technology [1]. If that's the case, would it be surprising to see Apple do the same? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_4 [1] https://seekingalpha.com/article/4042977-new-details-intels-ip-deal-collaboration-amd https://seekingalpha.com/article/4042977-new-details-intels-...
- Asooka 10y ago
- vosper 10y ago> Apple license fees and royalties, as disclosed in Imagination’s Annual Report, represented revenue of £60.7 million for the year ended 30 April 2016 and are expected to be approximately £65 million for the year ending 30 April 2017 > Imagination believes that it would be extremely challenging to design a brand new GPU architecture from basics without infringing its intellectual property rights. Well Apple has a ~$75m per year incentive to do just that, so I Imagination better hope they've really got a stranglehold on all the necessary IP.
- raverbashing 10y agoAnd they better not infringe on any Apple IP as well (or IP that was acquired)...
- my123 10y agoApple can build a GPU without infringing ImgTec patents, through a patent agreement with another GPU maker(including ARM, so they're pretty much covered).
- bryanlarsen 10y agoPerhaps not. Existing GPU makers protect themselves through cross-licensing their patents: you can use mine if I can use yours. However, it sounds like ImgTec is considering going full-on troll, so they won't need access to the other patents any more and can just sit under their bridge extorting tolls.
- pcwalton 10y agoPatent trolls are non-practicing entities. Imagination Technologies is hardly a non-practicing entity.
- bryanlarsen 10y agoSure, today. But they're "concentrating on the licensing business".
- faragon 10y agoIn my opinion, IT reaction is not wise. No matter if this comes after acquisition negotiation, or not, who is going to engage with IT in another long term partnership with such level of reaction? (not sure if it could be qualified as bullying or not)
- neuromancer85 10y agoTime for ImgTech to go Linux/Mesa friendly maybe? With an open source graphic stack they could become a great choice for projects like Raspberry Pi and other hw manifacturers: imagine a Vulkan-ready linux laptop that combines a rpi Compute module with the graphic potential from their GPUs... Hope they would be this brave.
- wolfgke 10y agoAccording to the post at https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Power-VR-Open-Chatter https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Power-VR... from 2015, PowerVR is/was working on an open source driver. Does anybody know whether something materialized from this?
- raverbashing 10y agoI think they're too attached to their "precious IP" to allow that. It seems their closed source drivers are full of bugs and incomplete functionality
- ajw 10y agoLooks like Apple was nearly half their business/revenue. The company's market cap (after this morning's crash) is only $275M, which is less than 5 years worth of royalties...
- dottrap 10y agoInteresting that Apple was that much of their revenue. Reminds me a little of PortalPlayer from the iPod days, though it was much more dependent on Apple (90% of its revenue). But I remember the rumor mill echoed Apple was unhappy with them. Eventually, Apple decided to switch MP3 chip suppliers and the PortalPlayer imploded. http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1160843 http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1160843
- owenwil 10y agoI love how passive aggressive this is – it shifts from "it's a shame Apple is leaving" to "we could sue them over it" pretty quickly towards the end. They imply it's difficult to do, but also that it's basically already complete... bizarre post to make public.
- rainforest 10y agoThe undertone certainly seems like they'll be paying a lot of attention to Apple's compliance of their patent portfolio. Given how much of their revenue comes from Apple I wonder if they'll have to become an enforcer of their current IP rather than generator of new IP.
- boogersandstuff 10y agoThis tone is what you get when your CEO hasn't slept in 3 days because of anxiety.
- semi-extrinsic 10y agoAnd what's with the "This announcement contains inside information"? at the end? Once they release a public statement, isn't everything in that statement then <not inside information>?
- lis 10y agoSo that everyone who is handling this news before it is released (i.e. the publisher) knows that it contains sensitive information and may not be acted upon.
- satysin 10y agoThat was a rather oddly worded press release. Much more defensive than I would have expected and quite arrogant towards the end. They make it sound as if no other company on earth could do what they do which as we know does not usually work out well for those who claim such a thing.
- masklinn 10y agoIt may be more understandable when you know that two dozen of their employees have left for Apple since 2015 (some highly placed), they're basically saying they believe Apple's internal GPU effort piggyback on Imagination's tech.
- dba7dba 10y agoSo Apple's not even bothering with buying the company for the talent? Apple is just straight up poach talent, and cutting out the company?
- rfrey 10y agoThe people don't belong to the company, why should the company get "a cut"?
- esun 10y agoThe people are free to go, but getting the same people to develop the same product again without infringing patents is a challenge.
- gergles 10y agoConversely, if there are any group of people who will be able to develop the same product again without infringing patents, it's the people who wrote the patents in the first place. Patent violation doesn't have a mens rea component - either you violate the patent by doing exactly what is described in it, or you don't. If you change even one aspect, you're no longer violating the patent. I'm sure the people who wrote the original patented algorithms can easily think of ways to accomplish the same thing that don't violate it.
- lis 10y agoThis doesn't come very surprising to me, as Apple has been in talks to acquire Imagination Technologies but has decided not to: https://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/03/apple-acquire-imagination-powervr-gpu/ https://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/03/apple-acquire-imaginat... I don't know the reason, but I suppose it is the same reason why they decided to build their own gpu independently. Apple also already own(s/ed?) a part of Imagination Technologies.
- masklinn 10y agoThe rumors about Apple working on GPU cores internally long predate the Imagination "talks" (which were apparently rather shallow). In fact significant Imagination employees started leaving for Apple since at least 2015: Dave Roberts (senior design manager) left in October 2015[0] and Jonathan Redshaw (VP hardware engineering) left in November 2015[1] [0] https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-roberts-9ba859a6 https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-roberts-9ba859a6 [1] https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-redshaw-30400990 https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-redshaw-30400990
- lis 10y agoExactly. Maybe they figured that they already hired the key personnel, so there was no need to buy the whole company any longer.
- Oletros 10y agoLooking the trend of doing everything in-house, it is not a surprising or unexpected move from Apple's part.
- Ultramax 10y agoKeep in mind this is not just hardware but software related. Right now I have IT graphics tools to optimize 3D models for mobile devices (for example). For us developers, it means optimizing to a different standard, while worrying about backward 'optimization compatibility'. Plus we'll need new software tools for development on the new GPU.
- Aaargh20318 10y agoI imagine the new GPU will support the same Metal API. As this is probably something that Apple has been working on for a while now I'd assume that Metal was designed with this new GPU architecture in mind. How much of those tools would need to be updated to a new GPU assuming the current API was specifically written for it ?
- kevindqc 10y agoBut even if the API is the same, it doesn't mean it will have the same performance? Something that was not a problem with previous GPUs could become a bottleneck and vice-versa? And since you need to support both GPUs or else you drop older iPhone support, it might get annoying. I don't really know if that would be the case though, I don't know anything about GPUs.
- amazingman 10y ago>But even if the API is the same, it doesn't mean it will have the same performance? Something that was not a problem with previous GPUs could become a bottleneck and vice-versa? And since you need to support both GPUs or else you drop older iPhone support, it might get annoying. If "in certain cases, the performance profile can be annoyingly different" is the outcome of a tectonic shift in the underlying hardware, it would be a significant and praise-worthy achievement.
- mikhailt 10y agoBut it is Apple, one of rare "experienced" companies that can pull this off well (not perfect but enough). Apple has done two (or three?) complete CPU architecture changes and developers just had to recompile their app. Remember fat binaries from the PPC>Intel switch over? I suspect as long as the graphics tools use Metal, it will be a quick transition.
- kev009 10y agoThis is death throes of imgtec.. and as a side effect, put a fork in MIPS, it's done.
- ageofwant 10y agoI blame Microsoft for Busines' current infatuation with Imaginary Property. Human civilization was built on the sharing of ideas and the ability to run with your neighbor's smart plan. Now you get sued for patent infringement and the neighbor expects to take rent for the rest of his natural life, and that of his undead estate, for what is almost always, at some level the synthesis of prior human endeavor and ingenuity. It's fucking bullshit. Luckily the Chinese gets this and wipes their collective arses of what is essentially a western fiction.
- rwallace 10y agoI agree with your overall sentiment, but Microsoft didn't start the patent trouble, or even the extreme overreach of copyright law; they were the victim, not the aggressor, in the first round of such.
- acdha 10y agoDon't blame Microsoft – they're no stranger to the game but this has been exploited since the Supreme Court created software patents as a category. Here's a reaction to flagrant trolling back in 1993: https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_105.html https://www.fourmilab.ch/autofile/www/chapter2_105.html Prior to that, you had companies like IBM, who were famous for using their hardware patent library as a club to get competitors to sign licensing agreements.
- puzzle 10y agoMicrosoft hadn't really even started when Apple itself had already perfected the fine, dirty art of submarine patents. We're using about early 90's, if not late 80's.
- nl 10y agoThis is worded like this because ImgTech had a duty to disclose the notice they received from Apple. Check out what the share price did: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=LSE%3A+IMG https://www.google.com.au/search?q=LSE%3A+IMG (down 60% - looks even more dramatic in the 5-day view)
- indy 10y agoDoes the decrease in share price make them a more attractive acquisition target for Apple?
- _anything_ 10y agoI wouldn't put this past them as an acquisition tactic, Imagination drops MIPS, Ensigma and suddenly they look very attractive just for the patents alone.
- mirimir 10y agoWouldn't that be considered manipulation? Or at least, using inside information.
- beaconstudios 10y agoI don't think it would be insider trading as they would not be buying or selling stocks based on non-public information.
- hyperpallium 10y ago> Apple has not presented any evidence to substantiate its assertion that it will no longer require Imagination’s technology, without violating Imagination’s patents, intellectual property and confidential information. Sounds like IMG has some fundamemtal IP that nVidia and AMD already license? They certainly have tied up their Tile-Based Deferred Rendering method, which never sounded that efficient to me (yet, Apple beats others graphically, so I probably don't appreciate it - maybe to do with cache efficiency?). Apple, having understood this technique very well, might have thought of something even better. They certainly would have to be pretty sure about their tech before sending this notification. Let's hope this... betrayal doesn't have the same fallout for customers as ~~google~~ maps did.
- jordskott 10y agoI already made a comment about Apple's GPU here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14021814 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14021814 Apple actually has its own mobile GPU, built from scratch. The Tile-Based Deferred Rendering GPU is an advantage from the GPU sharing the same memory with the GPU. On a normal desktop GPU you need to transfer huge amounts of data from the main CPU RAM to the Video Ram but on a mobile device, the CPU and the GPU sit both on the same memory system. This allows you to architecture your GPU in a different way. Both ARM's Mali and Qualcomm's Adreno use Tile-Based Deferred Rendering.
- AlphaSite 10y agoBoth Nvidia and AMD have already switched or are moving towards tile based rendered to reduce bandwidth (and hence energy) costs.
- oldgputech 10y agoiOS has always exposed patented imgtec texture formats to app developers. For backwards compatibility Apple will have to license the formats. At least until the relevant patents expire.
- robert_foss 10y agoIn the GPU space it is impossible to not infringe on the IP of other vendors. In fact it is the major reason GPU vendors give for not having an open source driver. I have spoken to the CTO (Jem Davies) of ARM about the GPU drivers and open sourcing them more than once. And every time I've gotten the reply: "No, we can't, it opens us up to IP infringement suits." Full disclosure: I used to work in the ARM GPU division.
- throwaway2048 10y agoOne should keep in mind, this is true of basicly any software whatsoever. It ALL infringes on patents, nearly without exception. There is always legal risk in open sourcing code. Infact there is legal risk from pretty much any action whatsoever. Good, responsible companies don't let that become a barrier to doing the right thing. If ARM really cared, GPU stuff would be open source. The fact it isn't pretty strong indication they don't. Don't just accept it when lawyers say no. After all AMD and Intel both have full open source graphics stacks, and the world hasnt exploded yet. Should also be noted, keeping stuff closed source is not very strong protection against reverse engineering, if it was DRM would actually work, and it never really has, dispite decades of effort. So its doubtful that keeping stuff closed is much protection against patent lawsuits.
- chinhodado 10y ago> If ARM really cared, GPU stuff would be open source. The fact it isn't pretty strong indication they don't. Don't just accept it when lawyers say no. Easy for you to say, harder when millions to hundreds of millions are at stake.
- throwaway2048 10y agoIts always easier to be an armchair critic, but I bet there are more than hundreds of millions waiting for whoever can de-crappify the embedded ARM driver ecosystem. Especially when this crap is at the root of why virtually every embedded linux product has serious security flaws that never get fixed. You cant update the kernel if you cant update the drivers.
- skc 10y agoSilly question, why can't Apple just buy the company outright.
- mikhailt 10y agoIt is not a silly question, it's just that no one outside of Apple and/or ImgTech knows. The most logical reason would be that Apple has all it needs when it started building its own custom GPU many years ago and ImgTech has no patents it needs, which is entirely possible despite what ImgTech has said. It is also entirely possible that Apple knows it has a few patents it is infringing and because on its last several years of experience, it would be cheaper to go through a lawsuit than to license. The reason? By going with the lawsuit, you're likely to get some of the patents invalided and royalties drop. It is possible it could go the other way, Apple paying more but it is extremely difficult to provide willful infringement when Apple can provide evidence of its own custom work that started before ImgTech was used in a clean room environment. But that's also easy to mitigate if ImgTech shows Apple hired the key personnel that worked on the same technology as the personnel should've known it was patented.
- pyb 10y agoAround 2011, IMG turned down acquisition offers from Apple and Intel.
- m-j-fox 10y agoIf Apple takes advantage of the depressed stock price to turn around and buy them, it would not be the first time. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A._Semi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A._Semi
- monocasa 10y agoHaha, and then Apple would own MIPS.
- adamnemecek 10y agoSo when is apple going to merge cpu and gpu? Less than 5 years or more.
- Isamu 10y agoMerge in what way? They are already on the same die. For low power mode I would expect them to remain separate.
- adamnemecek 10y agoConceptually.
- Cyph0n 10y agoBut CPUs and GPUs are "conceptually" different: they are designed from the ground up for opposite workload types.
- Aissen 10y agoFor anyone who has been following this, it has been a long time in the making: http://www.realworldtech.com/apple-custom-gpu/ http://www.realworldtech.com/apple-custom-gpu/ And Apple has been recruiting GPU designers for at least 5 years.
- mhayenga 10y agoThis really isn't news, it's been known for years. A GPU team is based in Austin (knowing Apple, they likely have multiple).
- kingosticks 10y agoThey've also had a load of job adverts out for hardware graphics positions in London over the last few months. I think I read their new team is supposed to based there (but I can't find that source now).
- fulafel 10y agoFinally a software company makes a GPU.
- amelius 10y agoEverybody who has programmed in VHDL or Verilog knows that building hardware is very close to writing software actually. It's just a level of abstraction lower, and there is a lot more parallelism, but the concepts are very similar.
- deepnotderp 10y agoHahahaha, No. Synthesizing ASICs and FPGA designs from Verilog/VHDL/insertnewhighlevellanguagehere may be close to software, but I guarantee you that creating high end production chips with such strict efficiency constraints guarantees that you need to do heavy simulations, and most importantly, has massive verification (it is 10/7nm after all....) efforts.
- amelius 10y agoOk, let me rephrase it as: it is like writing software with real-time constraints.
- Cyph0n 10y agoWriting HDL is quite similar to software, but the "stack" you deal with is entirely different. It's like saying that writing embedded C is similar to front-end JS (hardware interrupts vs. events, external world vs. DOM, input voltage vs. user input, etc.).
- DigitalJack 10y agoIt's more like the difference between writing C and writing a cookbook. As in a kitchen cookbook.
- Cyph0n 10y ago
- infogulch 10y agoI wonder how likely it is for Apple to support Vulkan on its hardware.
- dogma1138 10y agoConsidering they do not allow Vulkan on OSX when there is hardware that supports it about zero.
- abritinthebay 10y agoPossible but given the way mobile hardware works I wouldn't hold your breath. They won't want devs to miss out on hardware features because the Vulkan abstraction (by its nature, cross platform) is missing a feature. So it may happen but I'd imagine only after a strong native toolkit exists already
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- ekianjo 10y agoThey have already decided to go for their own API, Metal.
- jumelles 10y agoApple certainly has the resources to devote themselves to doing this right, if they really want to...
- s73ver 10y agoYou know, for this news to come out along side the news from Imagination Technologies Group, you know they have to have something impressive already.
- rrggrr 10y agoI don't understand. Apple sits on about 250 billion in cash, invests a fraction of it in GPU's for mobile, while Desktop and Laptop users are chained to last generation's CPUs and Graphics Cards. Apple product team is becoming more Ballmerian with each passing day.
- shiznit1618 10y ago"This announcement contains inside information." That single line at the end of the document means that any buying or selling of Apple or Imagination shares could be considered insider trading. Is this legal black magic to void trades that have hammered their stock price?