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I didn't know any other companies made GPUs. You'd think some hardware player would buy them to get a foot in the GPU/AI game. Are these GPUs fully open sourc
by andrewstuart 3y ago
I didn't know any other companies made GPUs.
You'd think some hardware player would buy them to get a foot in the GPU/AI game.
Are these GPUs fully open source?
- londons_explore 3y agoThey're closed source. Just parts of the driver are opensource. Note that these GPU's are widely used in (mostly low end) phones, and I think power the UI in some other household items with screens. They provided iPhone GPU's till 2017 (and there is debate if Apples new GPU might contain some imagination tech)
- andrewstuart 3y agoClosed source. That’s just crazy. If there’s anything a minor GPU player needs its community support.
- zokier 3y agoCrazy is that they were aggressively anti-foss even with their drivers not too long ago. Intel graphics usually has good Linux support, except for GMA500 which was based on Imagination tech. N900 was the Linux darling phone, and the graphics drivers where god-awful buggy blob from Imagination. And so on..
- nsteel 3y agoFor a company who historically has mostly made GPUs for phones and set-top boxes, I don't think that's true. People don't usually program these devices at this level. Especially in the case of all the hardware they did for Apple, no requirements to be open there. Maybe these days that's changing but it's a big change for a company like this to embrace.
- scq 3y agoNo, they're not open source at all. Their business model is to license the GPU IP block to other companies to integrate into their own chips. It's worth noting that Imagination designed the GPUs used in iPhones up until the iPhone 8 when Apple switched to their own design.