Imagination Tech Shares Plunge as Apple Ends Deal With British Firm

[citysnaps]

It is unusual for Apple to make such a statement about its future plans since they're talking about a couple of years.
And I don't understand why they didn't buy the company since they have plenty of cash. If they're building a custom GPU from the ground up they're going to need a lot of expertise, since they are already stakeholder of Imagination why don't just buy more stocks and acquire the company with all its patents and employees?

What statement? From the story, it appears Apple advised the company privately giving them a heads-up that their products would not be needed in the future.

Apple likely didn't purchase the company because they felt what the company offered was not in alignment with Apple's plans. Apple has enormous talent internally with respect to graphics processing and chip development.

 

[koyoot]

Apple already has custom designed GPU's in their iPhones since iPhone 6S.

And the GPUs are already the best in the business .

 

[citysnaps]

They poached the employees instead. Way cheaper.

Is it a cheap shot? Yeah

Really? No, it's not. Apple's going in a different direction.

 

[justperry]

Nah, this isn't about saving money. This is about control of device. The success in the CPU area is something they want to duplicate. And they may need a lot more GPU power for the their VR ambitions.

It has nothing to do with money, because effectively, Apple will pay more money for each CPU design, but it has everything to do with performance and efficiency. Apple is perfectly capable of delivering much better hardware than Nvidia, AMD, Imagination, put whoever you want here.

I know, it was a joke.

 

[Zarniwoop]

You clearly have no idea how much it costs to make CPU's, $30 Haha, LMFPO.
Just do some research before you write things like this, just one chip making machine from ASML will cost more than you probably ever make in your lifetime.

Thank you for your suggestion... and while we're at it, I recommend you do the same. Start from the basic math classes. I'll give you some examples later. At the moment I don't have time for it, but here's a start for you project: any investment, even 200m USD, is not much, when volumes are high. 200.000.000 USD and 10.000.000 CPUs = 20 USD per chip.

 

[justperry]

Thank you for your suggestion... and while we're here, I recommend you do the same. Start from the basic math classes. I'll give you some examples later. At the moment I don't have time for it, but here's a start for you project: any investment, even 200m USD, is not much, when volumes are high.

If you think you can go from $250 Intel CPU to $30 Apple CPU you are clearly wrong since it is impossible to make them that much cheaper, even more than half from CPU's from AMD which are the cheapest you can get.
Why do I have to do research while you started out, it's forum rules here that if you make a statement you have to prove it.

 

[pat500000]

One of those "hit and run" poaching tActics. Probably hire them temporarily and let them go few months later.

 

[koyoot]

Thank you for your suggestion... and while we're at it, I recommend you do the same. Start from the basic math classes. I'll give you some examples later. At the moment I don't have time for it, but here's a start for you project: any investment, even 200m USD, is not much, when volumes are high. 200.000.000 USD and 10.000.000 CPUs = 20 USD per chip.

Nope. Manufacturing in Silicon Design is initial batch, pre-production. It is part of R&D, but not part of manufacturing. Release Manufacturing is After the silicon team getting the golden master silicon.

So you have to think about this this way:
Design, Validation, Implementation, Manufacturing - parts of silicon design engineering. - all of this costs 200-270 mln USD.
Manufacturing is later, after this, and the chips going to the products, are best, most stable chips. - This costs 7500$/wafer. And the amount of chips you get from each wafer is your yield. And the variance in yield drives the costs up and down.

 

[apolloa]

Fast forward to 2019 when this company is suing Apple for IP infringement and the comments on this forum complain about the "patent troll"

You can almost garuntee that!

 

[Steve121178]

Apple didn't make it public, Imagination did.

It will also be almost impossible to build a GPU from scratch without infringing on Patents already in place.

Depends if Apple do their homework. I'd imagine they would have done otherwise the implications could end up costing them billions.

It also makes sense for Apple to bring it in-house. I'm sure we'll begin to see the result of this work in 1-2 years time.

 

[kyjaotkb]

• 15-24 months from today = iPhone 8s

I beg to differ... They will probably be offering A9 based devices for another 15-24 months (they just released a new iPad!). Those include Imagination technologies graphics. So the "15-24 months from today" could refer to the sell-off period of those. Meaning we could see an Apple graphics based iPhone as soon as... September 2017.

 

[apolloa]

"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. This evidence has been requested by Imagination but Apple has declined to provide it."

so, this would mean then Apple is willing to violate their patents...

okey-dokie.... We know how well that turns out.

But that's how Apples business model has worked for several years.

 

[mabhatter]

I’m not surprised that Apple are designing their own GPUs, but this does seems a slightly underhand way of doing business. I can understand poaching the odd employee to help you go it alone, but MacRumors reported 6 months ago that 25 ex-Imagination employees were working for Apple even back then.

Apple are usually more careful about not appearing to be such a ruthless corporate. They probably have their reasons for taking this approach, but it certainly doesn’t look good.

I almost wonder if this is a Brexit thing. After all in two years time Britain will be out of the EU and any legal judgements will take at least that long to get thru. But now they'll only affect Britain, not the EU markets. All Apple's money is in Ireland which is still in the EU.. for now.

 

[apolloa]

Apple already has custom designed GPU's in their iPhones since iPhone 6S.

Really? You sure about that as I never knew about it.
I thought the used Imagination GPU's? And they designed the rest of the chips.

 

[Zarniwoop]

If you think you can go from $250 Intel CPU to $30 Apple CPU you are clearly wrong since it is impossible to make them that much cheaper, even more than half from CPU's from AMD which are the cheapest you can get.
Why do I have to do research while you started out, it's forum rules here that if you make a statement you have to prove it.

Intel needs money too, so there's a big share of profit in the price.

 

[justperry]

Really? You sure about that as I never knew about it.
I thought the used Imagination GPU's? And they designed the rest of the chips.

Even earlier, it's since the iPhone 6

After years of recruiting graphics architects, Apple has designed its own custom GPU, which is already shipping in the A8, A9, and A10 processors that power the iPhone 6, 6S, and 7. The GPU in Apple’s processors still retains some fixed-function hardware from PowerVR, but based on publicly available evidence it is clear that the shader core in Apple’s GPU is architecturally very different from Imagination Technologies PowerVR line. This further implies that Apple wrote its own Metal and OpenGL ES compiler for its GPUs and almost certainly wrote the entire driver as well.

http://www.realworldtech.com/apple-custom-gpu/2/

Intel needs money too, so there's a big share of profit in the price.

True, but Apple won't make a x86 CPU for $30, that's one thing for sure.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Nope. Manufacturing in Silicon Design is initial batch, pre-production. It is part of R&D, but not part of manufacturing. Release Manufacturing is After the silicon team getting the golden master silicon.

So you have to think about this this way:
Design, Validation, Implementation, Manufacturing - parts of silicon design engineering. - all of this costs 200-270 mln USD.
Manufacturing is later, after this, and the chips going to the products, are best, most stable chips. - This costs 7500$/wafer. And the amount of chips you get from each wafer is your yield. And the variance in yield drives the costs up and down.

All true, and now here's the magic: Apple uses their Axx chips in many product categories and they're used later years in cheaper products.
- 210 million iPhones 2016 = 210 million Axx chips
- 45 million iPads 2016 = 45 million Axx chips
- 24 million Apple TV's 2016 = 24 million A8 chips

manufacturing, developing cost = peanuts

 

[recoil80]

What statement? From the story, it appears Apple advised the company privately giving them a heads-up that their products would not be needed in the future.

I read more than one articles and some of them wrote about an announcement made by Apple so I got confused

I beg to differ... They will probably be offering A9 based devices for another 15-24 months (they just released a new iPad!). Those include Imagination technologies graphics. So the "15-24 months from today" could refer to the sell-off period of those. Meaning we could see an Apple graphics based iPhone as soon as... September 2017.

Spot on.
They'll sell iPhone 7 for at least 18 months, and even the new iPad. So the first Apple's GPU should come to the market pretty soon

 

[Teddy Napoleon]

I guess you should never put too many eggs in the Apple basket. That applies to us too.

 

[Zarniwoop]

True, but Apple won't make a x86 CPU for $30, that's one thing for sure.

But I'm sure it is their goal. With AMD's IP, they could come close creating a SoC, that is way cheaper than Intel's equivalent. Similarly what they've done with ARM's IP property.

 

[ReneR]

Now that will be a fest, when all the GPU companies, including NVidia and AMD start to sue the heck out of their patent violations, ...

 

[justperry]

But I'm sure it is their goal. With AMD's IP, they could come close creating a SoC, that is way cheaper than Intel's equivalent.

Cheaper yes but not $30, Intel makes CPU's for all computers, if Apple makes their own it will cost them more per CPU than Intel makes them.

 

[mabhatter]

But that's how Apples business model has worked for several years.

Time to sell the graphics company to Samsung!

 

[koyoot]

All true, and now here's the magic: Apple uses their Axx chips in many product categories and they're used later years in cheaper products.
- 210 million iPhones 2016 = 210 million Axx chips
- 45 million iPads 2016 = 45 million Axx chips
- 24 million Apple TV's 2016 = 24 million A8 chips

manufacturing, developing cost = peanuts

Each CPU design is different, and costs itself . So think that Apple for A8, A9, A10 CPU had to pay like around 140-150 000 000 USD on each design alone. It is not peanuts .

Actually it is pretty logical. If first glimpses about Apple making their own custom GPU, unrelated to any IP from other companies, were from 2013, then 2017 is actually first year, when it could actually materialize.

Apple did used custom GPUs in the iPhones, however, they were based on Imagination Technologies IP.

Cheaper yes but not $30, Intel makes CPU's for all computers, if Apple makes their own it will cost them more per CPU than Intel makes them.

Actually, no. Apple will pay only silicon design costs, and manufacturing costs. Thats all what they will pay for.

 

[ReneR]

Apple didn't make it public, Imagination did.

It will also be almost impossible to build a GPU from scratch without infringing on Patents already in place. This could come back to bite them in the backside in a few years.

it is not only Imagination's patents, there are also AMD (Ati) and Nvidia patents, and certainly Intel and the other ARM vendors got a bunch for their designs too.

Actually I'm not at all for patents, I consider software and math patents unethical and preventing innovation. But given the amount of stupid patents, it should be pretty impossible to build a GPU without violating hundreds of them, ...