Apple To Develop Its Own GPU, UK Chip Designer Imagination Reveals In 'Bombshell' PR (anandtech.com)

From a report on AnandTech: In a bombshell of a press release issued this morning, Imagination has announced that Apple has informed their long-time GPU partner that they will be winding down their use of Imagination's IP. Specifically, Apple expects that they will no longer be using Imagination's IP in 15 to 24 months. Furthermore the GPU design that replaces Imagination's designs will be, according to Imagination, "a separate, independent graphics design." In other words, Apple is developing their own GPU, and when that is ready, they will be dropping Imagination's GPU designs entirely. This alone would be big news, however the story doesn't stop there. As Apple's long-time GPU partner and the provider for the basis of all of Apple's SoCs going back to the very first iPhone, Imagination is also making a case to investors (and the public) that while Apple may be dropping Imagination's GPU designs for a custom design, that Apple can't develop a new GPU in isolation -- that any GPU developed by the company would still infringe on some of Imagination's IP. As a result the company is continuing to sit down with Apple and discuss alternative licensing arrangements, with the intent of defending their IP rights.

Comments

They were going to buy them...

[Anonymous Coward]

Because they couldn't get around the patents they had. They must have figured out another way to do things if they're just cutting them loose.
Poor guys, the stock was down 63% this morning.

Re:They were going to buy them...

[msauve]

"Apple can't develop a new GPU in isolation -- that any GPU developed by the company would still infringe on some of Imagination's IP. "

Why is that the case? I don't see AMD, Intel, or nVidia among their licensees, and they make GPUs. Maybe they have a patent for "GPU, but on an Apple product."

And it looks like Imagination's first GPU (by the name PowerVR) came out in 1996. So it seems that the foundational patents would be expired by now.

Re:They were going to buy them...

[slew]

Because they couldn't get around the patents they had. They must have figured out another way to do things if they're just cutting them loose.
Poor guys, the stock was down 63% this morning.

Probably gonna get worse for Imagination. About the only reason they were selling anything to SoC folks is that they could point and say, Apple uses our GPUs and that's why we are going to stay in business (used to be Apple and Intel). Now, not so much, and ARM/Mali is probably gonna come in and eat their lunch. Imagination isn't gonna be much better than Vivante after this.

FWIW, Vivante isn't in much better shape than Imagination, their main customer is Freescale, which was bought by NXP which was recently bought by Qualcomm who many moond ago had bought ATI's mobile GPU for use in their Snapdragon chips (which is likely in most of the non-samsung android phones that aren't sold in china).

And then there were fewer...

Re: They were going to buy them...

[davester666]

It's not a leak. It sounds like something they are required to disclose, as it materially affects the company's value (hence, the immediate dumping of stock).

Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes?

[damn_registrars]

The summary seems to suggest that but the title is vague. It would arguably be an even bigger bombshell if they were developing a GPU to compete with NVIDIA and ATI on the desktop market.

Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes?

[Anonymous Coward]

There would be no point in telling their supplier of mobile GPU's "oh hey, we're about to drop you" if they were developing a desktop GPU.

Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes?

[TheRaven64]

The one doesn't preclude the other. There are a few things that mobile GPUs do to favour compute over off-chip data transfer because it saves power, but generally phone, tablet, and laptop GPUs are not that different other than in the number of pipelines that they support. That said, the numbers aren't really there for the larger parts. The iPhone and iPad between them make a sufficiently large chunk of the high-end mobile market that it's worth developing a chip that's used solely by them. The Mac lines are a sufficiently small part of their overall markets that it's difficult to compete with the economies of scale of companies like AMD and nVidia.

Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes?

[DontBeAMoran]

It's not like Apple really cares about Macs anymore. The last Mac mini update in 2014 was even a downgrade from their 2012 models. The Mac mini slide from the Keynote even implied that SSD was standard, but it's not. Still using 5400 RPM HDDs in their overpriced 2017 computers. Shame on you, Apple.

Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes?

[AHuxley]

Its not the desktop PC issue. Apple has the surrounding hardware, OS, cpu, the developers, a way to pay developers for their software. The GPU is the last part that still has outside considerations. Control over the OS, developer tools, battery usage, resolution and the CPU tasks can allow for an interesting new internal GPU concept.

Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes?

[Freischutz]

The summary seems to suggest that but the title is vague. It would arguably be an even bigger bombshell if they were developing a GPU to compete with NVIDIA and ATI on the desktop market.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Apple is not normally in the business of competing in the chip and components market. Apple designs its own motherboards but it does not market them to third parties and it would surprise me if they did any more with an in-house GPU design than use it in their own devices. If this design turns out to be superior to what you can get from NVIDIA and ATI, limiting its use to their own line of devices would help them sell those devices which fits their business model. If there is anything to hope for in this context it's mostly for Apple users who can hope that this will improve Apple devices as a gaming platform and that maybe one of the next couple of iterations of Apple TV will be a truly worth while gaming console (not holding my breath though).

Now, please give a cheer for the long line of local slashdot commenters eager to explain to us why Apple is the source of all evil and how this is a part of Apple's nefarious plan to achieve world domination.

Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes?

[Solandri]

If this design turns out to be superior to what you can get from NVIDIA and ATI

This is almost certainly aimed at improving improving the GPU in their iOS devices. Desktop (and laptop) GPUs are still an order of magnitude faster than GPUs in mobile devices (and consume an order of magnitude more power). I seriously doubt Apple would be able to leapfrog Nvidia and AMD in GPUs. (Except maybe power efficiency - problem being almost everyone else already beats them at power efficiency. That's why you rarely see Nvidia Terga SoCs in mobile devices outside of dedicated gaming handhelds like the Nvidia Shield and Nintendo Switch.)

This isn't like the A6 SoC Apple designed - where everyone else was licensing and using the same ARM v7 design for their SoCs, and all Apple had to do was tweak it to make the A6 perform better than other ARM SoCs. There's no standard modern GPU hardware architecture for them to license - they'd have to start from scratch.

Also, they've been neglecting their Mac line for years now. Many Macs aren't getting serious refreshes for 2-3 years, while competitors refresh every year. When I bought my current laptop with an Nvidia 970m, the top-end Macbook Pro still only had a Nvidia 750m as an option (and was still priced $500 higher for it). The Macbooks are temperature constrained because their designer-centric "form over function" mentality prevents them from cutting ventilation holes into the bottom of the chassis, severely limiting the power of the GPU they can put in.

Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes?

[TheFakeTimCook]

This isn't like the A6 SoC Apple designed - where everyone else was licensing and using the same ARM v7 design for their SoCs, and all Apple had to do was tweak it to make the A6 perform better than other ARM SoCs. There's no standard modern GPU hardware architecture for them to license - they'd have to start from scratch.

You do realize, of course, that Apple has an "Architecture"-class license from ARM, meaning they can, and DO, "roll their own" ARM-instruction-set-compatible CPUs. They don't just "tweak" or rearrange the deck-chairs, they actually have their own ARM designs, reflecting the fact that they have more ARM experience than almost anyone else on the planet.

Also, they've been neglecting their Mac line for years now. Many Macs aren't getting serious refreshes for 2-3 years, while competitors refresh every year.

Unlike most other laptop mfgs., Apple doesn't just throw together "this year's chipset", and call it a "New Design". They refresh stuff when it will actually result in a better-performing product, like with the latest MacBook Pro.

The Macbooks are temperature constrained because their designer-centric "form over function" mentality prevents them from cutting ventilation holes into the bottom of the chassis, severely limiting the power of the GPU they can put in.

You're full of shit.
The latest MacBook Pro can cruise along all-day at full-tilt CPU + GPU without thermal throttling at all. And the GPU choice was made not because of power consumption; but because there was no nVidia GPU that could drive as many displays as the AMD ones they used.

Please try to keep up.

Re: Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes?

[TheFakeTimCook]

1. Fastest SSD on market - not even close. I've got PCI-E SSDs a year old that are faster than anything in any Apple hardware, period.

2. The most I/O bandwidth on market - not in their gimped as fuck GPUs

3. Thermal design - yea, doesn't go anywhere. I've got a stress-test program that ignores all the safety stuff and does a real stress test, no matter the machine. Every Apple product burns up.

4. Uhh, my Sager notebook has dual GPUs. I can drive EIGHT 4K displays without issue, at the same cost as your shitty craptop.

Mediocre, beyond belief.

1. Fastest SSD. Not my benchmark; but, BTW, where's yours?

2. Most I/O b/w. Four TB 3 ports say 80 Gbps of raw I/O. Sorry.. Dem's da facts.

3. Sorry, the new MBP DOESN'T even GET to the thermal limits. According to multiple reviews, Both the CPU and GPU run flat-out 100% duty cycle 24/7. They really did fix it. Try again, Slashtard.

4. Dual GPUs. And at nearly THIRTEEN POUNDS, (nevermind the power bricks you have to lug around!) that Sager is more properly classified as a "luggable", than a laptop. You can't rest that thing on your lap for more than five minutes without your legs going numb! But that's ok, since you won't be venturing far from an AC outlet for long...

Re:Eliminate Moderation

[DickBreath]

Don't complain. Who watches the watchers?

Moderate the moderators! Yes, there is actually a way to do this. Someone could invent this thing. Call it meta-moderation. And patent it! With rounded corners! It would be the best! Trust me! It would go over bigly! I promise!

I can't tolerate intolerant people! I am totally intolerant of intolerant people!

There are no absolutes! Absolutely no absolutes! And that rule is absolute!

Those that cannot innovate...

[Gravis Zero]

sue.

Re:Has to be for mobile GPU

[itsdapead]

Suddenly Apple cares enough to develop their own GPU?

Newsflash 1: Apple have been using their own A-series systems-on-a-chip (including CPU and GPU) in iPhone/iPad/Watch & AppleTV for a few years now. They license IP from various companies (ARM, Imagination and others) and have taken over a few chip designers to achieve this.

Newsflash 2: Apple owns one of the leading gaming platforms on the market: it's called the iPhone.

Apple has drunk deeply of the kool-aid that says that everybody is going to be using phones and tablets for all their computing needs in the next few years.

Macs, meanwhile, are mostly running on Intel integrated graphics or unspectacular AMD mobile graphics chips. Tim Cook recently stood up and re-iterated how important the Mac line is to Apple - and anybody who understands political talk will know that means exactly the opposite of what it says.

Re:Has to be for mobile GPU

[bill_mcgonigle]

If you're going to replace the Mac with an iOS "Mac Mode" and drive a KVM you're going to need a very efficient GPU and a decent patent portfolio.

Re:Apple designing a GPU?

[DickBreath]

The unique patent worthy novelty of an Apple GPU is that it could work with . . .

Rounded Corner Rectangles

And it would have the other magical incantation that makes things patent worthy . . .

On an iPhone!

Re:Apple is tired to suck at graphics

[ledow]

You'd think, then, if this was indeed the issue and they were unable to compete, they'd use some of the HUMONGOUS profit margin they make on the iPhones and iPads and buy the same (or similar) chips?

It's got nothing to do with "competing", so much as "owning".

Apple to replace Imagination's designs?

[najajomo]

'Furthermore the GPU design that replaces Imagination's designs will be, according to Imagination, "a separate, independent graphics design."'

Imagination does not acknowledge Apples claims, it actual fact Imagination says the exact opposite.

"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"

Apple were also one time in talks to acquire Imagination's technology outright.

"From time to time, Apple talks with companies about potential acquisitions. We had some discussions with Imagination, but we do not plan to make an offer for the company at this time." March 2016

How is this news?

[LynnwoodRooster]

Apple's been advertising/looking for GPU verification engineers and IC process engineers on LinkedIn and other sites for months. If this was a "secret" it was one of the worst-kept secrets out there...

Re: Apple is tired to suck at graphics

[UnknowingFool]

Hey, 820? Why compare with a more than a year old Soc? Compare it to the 835 then, moron and see a very diferent story. Anyway, se are talking about graphics fanboi. On a phone half the price of a iPhone 7.

You really are a fanboi arent you? The 835 has not been released yet. Therefore it is rather impossible for someone December 2016 to do a head to head comparison. And when someone compares apples to apples comparison of two processors which you can get today and that destroys your assertion, your first instinct it to get defensive.