Indeed, similarily as Microsoft and Sony did with their custom chips for Xbox and PS4.
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Imagination Tech Shares Plunge as Apple Ends Deal With British Firm
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The big.LITTLE architecture has been a basic part of ARM's designs for years.
Apple just waited longer with implementing it.
That won't happen with x86. There is no way for Apple to ever obtain a x86 license. The IP belongs to Intel.
I suspect it's because this has a material impact on revenue where it's less the case for Samsung or TSMC. Imagine if an exec sold shares between the time Apple notified them and the time they went public with the info? How do you avoid the appearance of insider trading?
It would be enough to put a Zen core on the SoC. AMD has the license.
Perhaps Imagination shouldn't have bundled a threat into this press release. That says more about their culture than anything, and perhaps if this is the way they respond, they are just bad partners.
So what GPU will they use moving forward?? Any guesses?
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Apple didn't make the announcement.
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Apple didn't make the announcement.
Why are they scumbags? If the best employees are offered a better job and they choose to leave, shouldn't they have that choice? They wouldn't leave if they didn't want to, and no one's forcing them to do anything (besides you, as it seems you believe it's appropriate for them to not have the option to go when they want).
Last time Intel handed out x86 licenses has been during the late 80s.
Only Intel, AMD and VIA posses x86 licenses at this point and only Intel and AMD are actually developing CPUs.
Intel's market share is way over 90%, handing out their IP to a company with unlimited financial resources, talented engineers and zero scruple to **** over their competition would be just stupid.
Next problem: Intel owns x86, but AMD owns x64. x86 without x64 is basically useless at this point, so you would need AMD and Intel to hand out their IP.
Its not GPU design, but SILICON design. Each AX chips is SoC. CPU+GPU subsystems. If you have two different companies, that are responsible for two different cores you have to design the silicon, and pay the appropriate money for it.
14 nm Design for SILICON is around 200 000 000 - 270 000 000 USD. But silicon is not only GPU.
You get the picture right now?
Oh
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Good as a main reason I like Apple is the custom processors that rival actual laptops and they should be spending that much money. As for their own custom chips I'm curious wether there first implementation will be a minor regression and then over time they will become faster. I'd be hard pressed to believe their first custom design would somehow outperform competitors across the board.
Agreed on the first statement
The second - It's not wrong. In your example, Apple is currently stepping back from Qualcomm after being gouged. Apple didn't like the price, so they went elsewhere for a better solution. It took a while though.
Its not only Apple. EVERYBODY who is designing silicon chips, from ground up, have to pay this much for the Design, Validation, Implementation and manufacturing side of the R&D of the chips. Intel, AMD, everybody.
AMD for this matter payed 50 000 000 USD each year for development of Zen architecture, and Ryzen chips.
Good lord this stuffs expensive I'm curious to see if a legal battle will develop bewtween Imagination and Apple now.
Apple no longer require Imagination's technology, patents, intellectual property and confidential information. Apple need to buy AMD.
Interesting. I will replace my 4 years old iPhone in the next 2 years.
Yeah they are totally dominating the phone market.
And ...
oh yeah. That's it.
Pushing computing technology? Media interaction? Gaming? Space travel? Entertainment? Automation? AI?
It's a small world Apple lives in now.
They already "poached" all the talent they need from the firm and owned 10% of it so why bother buying it? Unfortunately, this will lead to a meritless, sour grapes lawsuit from this company claiming Apple stripped them of their talent, future earnings and abandoned them. Can't say it isn't true but it's also not illegal.
Apple stinks. They've done this over and over again with employees who worked on patents they used. 65million is nothing IMHO a legal battle over infringement is most likely going to cost apple much more than that if this company sees they've been infringed upon with apples new solution.
I love apple products but boy oh boy does the company tactics STINK! Sounds like a very cheap deal to license these patents and to hire their employees and take it in house seems underhanded and nasty.
I love apple products but boy oh boy does the company tactics STINK! Sounds like a very cheap deal to license these patents and to hire their employees and take it in house seems underhanded and nasty.
meh. people, people, the employees that left said yes to apple.
Honestly, the company probably saw it coming. With Apple's strides on the CPU side, it was only a matter of time before they took over the GPU as well. They also seemed to have dropped the ball with the GPU on the 7 the same as the 6s.
It means Apple either has someone else thy want to liscense with or they are going to go in house and develop their own custom gpu