End of KYRO ? : ST Pulling out PC Graphics (Again!)

[Daemon_UK]

Got this from Beyond3d

ST have sent out PR saying they are to sell off their PC Graphics division:

?GENEVA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 8, 2002?-STMicroelectronics (NYSE:STM) has announced that it is withdrawing from the PC Graphics Accelerator IC market and is currently seeking a buyer for the related assets and activities of its PC Graphics business, which accounted for approximately $15 million of ST?s $6.36 billion revenues in 2001. ?


Does this mean the end of the KYRO series of graphics chips? Well hopefully not seeing as they are selling the entire division, however that would depend on the buyer.

Here?s Imagination Technologies initial response:

?Imagination is aware of discussions taking place with interested parties and has been involved in supporting ST with these activities. In addition, a number of interested PC chip companies have approached Imagination regarding access to future PowerVR PC technologies.?

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Does this mean that the KRYO III could be delayed? Man, this does not seem good news?

What would be funny, is that Nvidia bought those patents, and have GP and ST patents, and hold back TBR tech until they have taken all the juice out of IMR.

Now that would be evil

 

[Sunner]

Definately not good news for Kyro III.

Even if someone else picks it up, it will most certainly delay everything that's in the pipe.

 

[vss1980]

Nah, this will not be a particularly big blow for PowerVR itself as Imagination Technologies hold all the IP rights and copyrights to the technology. If anything it looks more like ST is looking for someone to buy out its contract to manufacture PowerVR chips rather than back out of it (which could cost them money).

As far as I know, ST only had license to produce PowerVR chips, so technically there is nothing for nvidia to buy.
This has happened before, when NEC produced the PowerVR1 and 2 chips and then did not carry on to manufacture the series 3 (Kyro cards).

I'm fairly sure they will find another chip maker with only a fairly small delay. The Kyro line has already demonstrated that it is profitable so that will help them find another chip maker quicker, and the Kyro III was scheduled for around summer this year anyway so if they find another company to get on-board with they could start sampling and working toward final silicon and still have a product ready by autumn.

 

[Daemon_UK]

<< and the Kyro III was scheduled for around summer this year anyway so if they find another company to get on-board with they could start sampling and working toward final silicon and still have a product ready by autumn. >>



Are you crazy? The KYRO III out by autum?

ATi will probably have the R300 and Nvidia with either the GF5 or a more enhanced verison of the GF4, and this will simply negate anything the KYRO III comes out with.

If IMG/PVR don't release something soon, they will be forever subscribed to the lower gaming market. Their persepction is already at that level now.

 

[vss1980]

Well, we already know that the series 4 (KyroIII) chip will have T&L capabilities (maybe even programmable) and use DDR ram (possibly running at 400MHz) and have a fill-rate in excess of 1000 Mtex/sec. Bearing in mind that the 350 Mtex/sec fill-rate of the KyroII was able to beat out the GF2 GTS in some tests, PowerVR will have a card that at worst will perform like a GF2 and at best could potentially outperform the GF4 - and be considerably cheaper.

I'm not saying I expect the Kyro III to be a market leader in terms of performance, but all they need to do is be competitive at a decent price point.

EDIT: Personal way-out-there but possible prediction, SiS buy in and make chips and integrated solutions using PowerVR (the tile-architecture will lend itself to the lower bandwidth of integrated solutions).

 

[Gog]

This is not good... not good!

Oh well, looks like its just nVidia and ATi from here on. The Kyro III already has been delayed for a couple of months, and considering that its a mid to low end product, by the time it comes out (assuming all the financial mumbo-jumbo is worked out) it will most likely be extremely uncompetitive. What a shame, they could of really made a difference. Looks like our only other hope for competition are the Bitboys - comeon make somthing damit!

 

[StormRider]

Does anyone else have the feeling that Kyro III will be the next Rampage? -- Promising hardware that will never be release and hence grow into a legend....

 

[Rand]

I don't think it's the end of Kyro for certain as STMicro did not own the technologies and patents related to the Kyro, they had merely licensed it from Imagination Technologies, STMicro did the chip layout and repining; and fabbed the initial Kyro, and used TSMC to fab KYROII.
Any purchasers would get the chip designers and the license to use the PowerVR Series 4 & 5 technology.
Imagination Technologies still owns all of the IP.

Imagination Technologies still have PowerVR Technologies (and hence the IP) but it'll take time to find a new partner who can develop the next gen.

I wonder if a possible purchaser could be VIA?
It's well known that VIA was heavily involved with the negotiation for 3dfx IP and associated technologies, up until the last minute most people thought VIA would be the purchaser befoe nVidi came and put in a superior offer that VIA couldnt match.
Plus VIA already owns the existing technoligies from S3's former line.
And it's been mentioned many times that VIA is working on various non-integrated graphics chips, they have an entirely separate unit dedicated to developing graphics chips.
It's seems like something they would be heavily interested in, and the tile based rendering technology would lend itself extremely well to VIA's existing integrated graphics cores, as limited memory bandwidth is obviously a huge factor for integrated solutions.

nVidia definitely isnt likely, as they already own IP for tile based technology and have as yet done little with it. Besides that they wouldnt get the technology, only the license to use it. And the licensing for PowerVR series 4&5 technology would likely be dead by the time nVidia made any use out of it.

Perhaps NEC would be interested?
They used to be heavily involved with Imagination Technologies, and developed and sold previous chips based on PowerVR technology.
Plus their still developing and manufacturing graphics chips and boards over in Japan.

In any case there are clearly purchasers that would be very interested in acquiring the rights to use said technology, and IMG Tech can always find another partner to develop the Kyro. They've done it twice before already, this will be a third time they find a new partner.
Kyro will live on, it just won't be from STMicro.

 

[Killrose]

I agree with Daemon_UK about the fact that this is going to put a delay in any future release of new product. And this in itself could be the death of Kyro. They are already 2 product cycles behind (maybe three or more?) Nvidia and Ati. Even if they release the KyroIII later than planned, it's already late, potential customers have already probably bought their next up-grade and most are not going to dump their current up-grade for a Kyro any-thing.

Loosing "customer buying cycles" is just as bad for a company as missing a product release cycle.

 

[nemesismk2]

<< I agree with Daemon_UK about the fact that this is going to put a delay in any future release of new product. And this in itself could be the death of Kyro. They are already 2 product cycles behind (maybe three or more?) Nvidia and Ati. Even if they release the KyroIII later than planned, it's already late, potential customers have already probably bought their next up-grade and most are not going to dump their current up-grade for a Kyro any-thing.

Loosing "customer buying cycles" is just as bad for a company as missing a product release cycle. >>



Finding another company to produce the Kyro chips IMO would be fairly straight forward, the problem will be the delay in setting everything up. If the Kyro 3 is going to suffer a large delay then I imagine that it willn't be the same Kyro 3 which would of been released soon but a revised design. Another suggestion is that they skip the Kyro 3 and go straight to the product they were working on before STM decided to pull out of the graphics market. Many times a more powerful video card has been mentioned which was to follow the Kyro 3, if they were pretty advanced in the design stage then that would be the best option rather than release a video card which will be very outdated by the time it's released.

 

[StormRider]

<< Another suggestion is that they skip the Kyro 3 and go straight to the product they were working on before STM decided to pull out of the graphics market. Many times a more powerful video card has been mentioned which was to follow the Kyro 3, if they were pretty advanced in the design stage then that would be the best option rather than release a video card which will be very outdated by the time it's released. >>



You mean like Rendition decided to skip ahead to the next design because they were falling behind? Unfortunately, history tells us that once a company falls behind the product schedule they usually die.

 

[spanky]

since nvidia bought out 3dfx... lets hope ati will gobble up STM... that would definitely make things a little more juicy in the graphics industry

 

[StormRider]

Well, besides ATI, we still have SIS... hehe

 

[DevilsAdvocate]

That should just about do it for Powervr2. No more epic Kyro2 rants.

 

[Rand]

<<

<< Another suggestion is that they skip the Kyro 3 and go straight to the product they were working on before STM decided to pull out of the graphics market. Many times a more powerful video card has been mentioned which was to follow the Kyro 3, if they were pretty advanced in the design stage then that would be the best option rather than release a video card which will be very outdated by the time it's released. >>



You mean like Rendition decided to skip ahead to the next design because they were falling behind? Unfortunately, history tells us that once a company falls behind the product schedule they usually die. >>



This wouldnt be the first time Imagination Technologies was bereft of a partner and had to skip a product cycle though, remember they've been in the business since long before they Kyro brand ever appeared. IMG Tech missed a few product cycles with the old Neon line of cards and they managed to survive to bring out the Kyro's, I'm confident they can do it again.

 

[Sunner]

Don't forget they had the DreamCast contract to make them money during those times.

 

[Rand]

<< Don't forget they had the DreamCast contract to make them money during those times. >>



If your referring to STMicro they didnt make a dime off of the DreamCast. NEC manufactured the DreamCast chips based off of licensed technology from IMGTech, STMicro had nothing to do with it.

 

[vedin]

Spanky, Nvidia would have to be doing a whole lot better than anyone thinks they are in order to buy STM. STM has a LOT more money than Nvidia does. More doesn't mean they can afford some things though, because they have other things to spend it on. PowerVR just got shredded by the coporate machine that way. And even if Nvida DID somehow buy out STM, that wouldn't stop the Kyro, because ST owns nothing of Imagitech or PowerVR.

 

[Rand]

<< Spanky, Nvidia would have to be doing a whole lot better than anyone thinks they are in order to buy STM. STM has a LOT more money than Nvidia does. More doesn't mean they can afford some things though, because they have other things to spend it on. PowerVR just got shredded by the coporate machine that way. And even if Nvida DID somehow buy out STM, that wouldn't stop the Kyro, because ST owns nothing of Imagitech or PowerVR. >>



As you mentioned STMicro quite literally dwarfs nVidia in terms of revenue, and their financial statements reflect the huge gap between their relative financial success. They could most certainly afford to purchase STM's graphics division alone though, but that would make little sense for nVidia as they've got very little to gain from it.

 

[nemesismk2]

Well from the information I've gathered from a number of sources since the STM press release that production of the Kyro 2 will continue until a new buyer can be found, remember STM want to make money out of the Kyro chipsets for as long as they can. There's no news if they started production of the Kyro 3 however and if they have the chips insufficent numbers then I can't see any reason why Hercules willn't want to start selling them.

Just to make a point, STM didn't produce the boards, design the technology or even do the marketing, they just produced the chips and I'm sure another chip maker is just itching to start production.

Some good news for Kyro fans will be the release of the Hercules 4800, no specs as yet but atleast it's been officially confirmed by Hercules. It will be interesting to see what's been done to the original 4500

Hercules 4800

 

[Sunner]

Rand, I was referring to IMT/PowerVR.