Nvidia's lawsuit

[s44]

I know there's a thread in VC&G, but that forum's usual level of objectivity about Nvidia is on display...

The timing is obviously for headline-grabbing purposes, but the suit itself I think is pretty interesting. If, as the patents claim, Nvidia and 3dfx basically invented the GPU, they should be suing Imagination, ARM, Qualcomm, and any other mobile GPU companies for not paying license fees. (On the desktop side, Intel is paying, and AMD has a cross-licensing agreement for *their* pile of GPU-related patents.) But only Qualcomm and Samsung are in the suit, presumably because they're the biggest targets. (How did the Imageon sale from AMD not include protection from this stuff?) Samsung wants to pass the buck to GPU designers, and it's not clear what Qualcomm wants to do besides just defend.

I'm not sure whether this is more about getting Samsung et al. to pay, renegotiating Nvidia's licensing with Qualcomm over the latter's cell patents, or something else. If Nvidia wants to soak the handset manufacturers, why not include Apple?

 

[Oyeve]

Nvidia sucks, IMO, on the mobile front. Seems like they just want mucho $$$ from sammy and qual.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Honestly I think its fair. Mobile SoCs cut years out of the GPU development curve by jumping to things like unified shaders within a few generations (a process that took a decade on the PC side). In fact on ARM GPUs are ahead of the CPUs because everyone has to build that side up from scratch. Nvidia got hosed on ARM so why not try to salvage something?

 

[Ravynmagi]

They should sue Apple. That would be entertaining.

 

[ThatsABigOne]

I suppose things are not going well for Nvidia.

 

[Dulanic]

I suppose things are not going well for Nvidia.

Things are not going well for anything PC related. Nvidia has failed to keep up /w Samsung, Qualcomm and others at being competitive in the mobile market. Nvidia has a market of power power power and be damned overheating & battery consumption. It's like expecting a sprinter to win a marathon. It doesn't work.

 

[Ravynmagi]

I suppose things are not going well for Nvidia.

Things are not going well for anything PC related. Nvidia has failed to keep up /w Samsung, Qualcomm and others at being competitive in the mobile market. Nvidia has a market of power power power and be damned overheating & battery consumption. It's like expecting a sprinter to win a marathon. It doesn't work.

Yeah, I have a hard time imaging it is good times at Nvidia these days.

They make the most powerful graphics cards, but I think the market for these beastly GPUs has shrunken quite a bit over the years.

AMD won the console wars, they power the PS4 and Xbox One.

The Tegra 3 didn't show up in very many products and practically nobody used the Tegra 4.

Integrated GPUs in Intel and AMD chips have gotten much better, so people really don't need to buy low end discrete cards anymore.

The Tegra Shield seemed like a flop.

 

[Mopetar]

They should sue Apple. That would be entertaining.

Presumably they would have to sue Imagination Technologies who actually provide the GPU technology used in Apple's SoC. That company also predates nVidia, which may explain why nVidia isn't going after them if they have a mound of their own patents that could be used. For all I know, they two companies may already cross-license each others patents to some degree.

 

[s44]

Yeah, I have a hard time imaging it is good times at Nvidia these days.

Shareholder reports say otherwise.

I should have known better than to expect anything but "Nvidia d0med" at AT...

 

[Exophase]

Honestly I think its fair. Mobile SoCs cut years out of the GPU development curve by jumping to things like unified shaders within a few generations (a process that took a decade on the PC side). In fact on ARM GPUs are ahead of the CPUs because everyone has to build that side up from scratch. Nvidia got hosed on ARM so why not try to salvage something?

Unified shaders are not merely an idea that came to fruition because someone eventually realized it was a good idea. It happened as it did because the growing transistor budgets allowed for it. Mobile SoCs jumped on the curve because they started with more transistors.

Why do you think ARM GPUs are ahead of their CPUs anyway? Do you have any idea how much common technology there is in CPUs? They're less unique and novel than GPUs are.

 

[ams23]

Yeah, I have a hard time imaging it is good times at Nvidia these days.

Quite the contrary really. NVIDIA's Tegra revenue is back to growing again after the lull last year. The Tegra automotive revenue in particular has been growing at 50-100% per year, and there are now > 6 million cars on the road with NVIDIA Tegra processors inside (partners include Audi, Volkswagon, BMW, Mini, Porsche, Tesla Motors, Fiat, Bentley, Rolls Royce, Lamborghini, Maserati, Aston Marton, Citroen, Seat, Skoda, Lancia, Peugot, Hyundai, etc). The Tegra consumer business is also growing, as Tegra K1 will make it's way into some very popular Chromebooks (Acer Chromebook 13, HP Chromebook 14, etc) and some very popular tablets (Xiaomi Mi Pad, rumored Nexus 9, etc). Tegra K1 (including Denver TK1 variant) is also expected to make it's way into smart TV's, micro gaming consoles, and high end smartphones. Tegra K1 will even make it's way into embedded systems used for robotics, medical devices, military devices, etc.

And in a milestone for the company, NVIDIA now has an ultra mobile Kepler GPU architecture (arguably the world's most advanced and highest performance GPU in this form factor) that is in step with the desktop/laptop GPU architecture. They also have a fully custom very high performance 64-bit ARMv8 compatible CPU architecture. And the soon-to-come Maxwell GPU architecture is their first GPU architecture designed for "mobile first" and is expected to be one of the world's most power efficient GPU architectures.

Note that NVIDIA has a patent licensing agreement with Intel that "covers all SoCs and CPUs shipped by Intel, including those incorporating Imagination’s PowerVR GPUs". NVIDIA also has a cross-licensing agreement with AMD.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/8492/...ringement-complaints-against-qualcomm-samsung

 

[bearxor]

The inclusion of Samsung seems very weird. They don't design their own GPU's, they use Mali and Adreno, correct? Some PowerVR in older stuff.

 

[ams23]

The inclusion of Samsung seems very weird. They don't design their own GPU's, they use Mali and Adreno, correct? Some PowerVR in older stuff.

Samsung is one of the major companies that is actually bringing this technology to market, so they do bare much of the responsibility IMHO.

 

[Mopetar]

The inclusion of Samsung seems very weird. They don't design their own GPU's, they use Mali and Adreno, correct? Some PowerVR in older stuff.

Sure, they could go after ARM Holdings who actually designs the GPU, but that's just a protracted court battle that can drag on forever. Samsung makes more phones than anyone else in the world and because nVidia can threaten Samsung's ability to keep selling those phones it can be leveraged to force a settlement rather than risking a court case or potential sales bans or alternatively start to buy some nVidia SoCs instead of using Qualcomm's or their own Exynos line.

Even if the lawsuits won't go anywhere, it may create enough of a panic to drive some business to nVidia.

 

[dawheat]

Samsung is one of the major companies that is actually bringing this technology to market, so they do bare much of the responsibility IMHO.

Nvidia is going after the money and trying to use the threat of a end product injunction to get better terms. Samsung, in selling more phones and making more money than all the other Android OEMs combined, is an easy target.

Nvidia SHOULD be going after Qualcomm directly and working out terms or a cross-licensing agreement. They should not be trying to double-dip by charging both Qualcomm and the end user (Samsung, HTC, etc). Pick one type to avoid looking slimy.

 

[Mopetar]

They should not be trying to double-dip by charging both Qualcomm and the end user (Samsung, HTC, etc). Pick one type to avoid looking slimy.

Samsung also makes their own Exynos SoC and they only use Qualcomm for some of their phones. Exynos may very well be second or third most popular SoC line on its own.

Basically they just picked the two largest targets.

 

[WelshBloke]

Samsung also makes their own Exynos SoC and they only use Qualcomm for some of their phones. Exynos may very well be second or third most popular SoC line on its own.

Basically they just picked the two largest targets.

The GPU in Exynos SoCs is ARM or PowerVR IIRC.

 

[Mopetar]

Wikipedia says it's been the Mali (ARM) GPU for the last several generations.

It would be interesting if this makes Samsung move back to using PowerVR, who nVidia isn't suing, maybe because of licensing deals or other reasons.

All that aside, have any of the news articles actually linked to the patents in question?

 

[dawheat]

Samsung also makes their own Exynos SoC and they only use Qualcomm for some of their phones. Exynos may very well be second or third most popular SoC line on its own.

Basically they just picked the two largest targets.

But they license Mali or PowerVR GPUs in the Exynos SoC. Qualcomm uses their own Adreno GPUs right?

So if Samsung has licensed these GPUs from ARM and Imagination, then Nvidia has to decide whether to go after the technology provider or the user of the products. They can't go after both which is why suing both Qualcomm and Samsung doesn't make sense to me outside of a money grab.

 

[s44]

So if Samsung has licensed these GPUs from ARM and Imagination, then Nvidia has to decide whether to go after the technology provider or the user of the products. They can't go after both which is why suing both Qualcomm and Samsung doesn't make sense to me outside of a money grab.

They won't get paid out by both, but putting them both in a single suit will force the lawyers/court to decide in a definitive and binding way. Otherwise, both OEM and GPU maker could point the finger at the other (as they've been doing in negotiations!) without having to resolve the contradiction (if one gets a court to decide that it *isn't* the one Nvidia should go after, that other party isn't bound by the decision unless it's been added to the case).

 

[sontin]

But they license Mali or PowerVR GPUs in the Exynos SoC. Qualcomm uses their own Adreno GPUs right?

So if Samsung has licensed these GPUs from ARM and Imagination, then Nvidia has to decide whether to go after the technology provider or the user of the products. They can't go after both which is why suing both Qualcomm and Samsung doesn't make sense to me outside of a money grab.

They are primar going after Samsung. Because Samsung is using their own and Qualcomm SoCs for their products they need to go after Qualcomm, too.

Unified shaders are not merely an idea that came to fruition because someone eventually realized it was a good idea. It happened as it did because the growing transistor budgets allowed for it. Mobile SoCs jumped on the curve because they started with more transistors.

Huh? Mobile GPUs are evolving much faster because all these techniques already exist. Or how do you think nVidia was able going from a DX8 architecture to the latest and best within one year?

 

[Mopetar]

But they license Mali or PowerVR GPUs in the Exynos SoC. Qualcomm uses their own Adreno GPUs right?

So if Samsung has licensed these GPUs from ARM and Imagination, then Nvidia has to decide whether to go after the technology provider or the user of the products. They can't go after both which is why suing both Qualcomm and Samsung doesn't make sense to me outside of a money grab.

Samsung isn't selling anything using PowerVR parts any longer, and Mali comes from ARM. Samsung is also interesting because they make the chips in addition to putting them in their own phones.

What I'm guessing is that nVidia is doing is going after Qualcomm and Samsung for selling SoCs that they claim infringe on their patents. Qualcomm sells to practically everyone so they can target them instead of going after the people that use them. Samsung just sells to itself, so it isn't as clear.

Hopefully more details start coming out over the next few days and everything becomes a little more clear. nVidia is holding a conference call about the suit today so more information should be forthcoming.

 

[cmdrdredd]

Shareholder reports say otherwise.

I should have known better than to expect anything but "Nvidia d0med" at AT...

You got it

 

[Exophase]

Huh? Mobile GPUs are evolving much faster because all these techniques already exist. Or how do you think nVidia was able going from a DX8 architecture to the latest and best within one year?

GeForce ULP is a DX9 style architecture, you don't think you can do floating point in DX8 shaders do you? It was also nearly the same architecture from 2007's Tegra 1 all the way up to Tegra 4. nVidia dragged their feet badly with their mobile GPU technology then leaped forward using their own higher end IP, sure. But does that mean that everyone else moved forward by ripping them off, when they were constantly updating their mobile GPU IP while nVidia was stagnating? Hardly. Probably nVidia was stagnating precisely because they knew they'd be better off just switching to Kepler eventually.

The first commercial solution with unified shaders that I'm aware of wasn't even nVidia but AMD w/XBox 360. Then about a year later, November 2006, GeForce 8 series came out. Meanwhile, ImgTech's PowerVR SGX series was announced in 2005, and featured unified shaders. You really want to tell me that they were relying on nVidia to rip off the idea? No, they went with unified shaders because it's a natural progression that allows for more flexible and balanced rendering. The reason why non-unified shaders were done first is because pixel shading was kept simpler than vertex shading to save on die area. Moving to unified made sense as the area budgets increased.

And it's not like ImgTech just came out of nowhere with their GPUs in the mid 2000s. They've been continuously iterating them all the way back since the mid-90s, pretty much as long as nVidia has. The early Adreno (pre-Qualcomm acquisition) is also clearly based off of AMD's unified shading GPU + tiling that was used in XBox 360, which figures since it was AMD's IP. Since and Qualcomm bought it they too have continually evolved it.

 

[Mopetar]

It might not be as simple as just using unified shaders. Like anything else, there are probably several different ways to implement them, but if NV found a really efficient way and patented it and then everyone else started doing it that way because the performance was a lot better, they would have a fairly solid case.

AT has a fairly good article on the topic that provides some better insight into the matter. Also, it does seem as though they're going after the Imagination Technologies as well for their PowerVR graphics.