Nvidia blasts sueballs at Qualcomm, Samsung – wants Galaxy kit banned Nvidia claims to hold patents on core graphics processor technologies found in mobile phones and tablets, and is suing Qualcomm and Samsung as a result. The graphics chip giant has filed lawsuits against the two semiconductor goliaths, seeking damages and an injunction blocking US sales of what Nvidia claims are the companies …
I'm sorry, are you suggesting they employed some common sense? Shouldn't they both be prosecuted for that?
Cross Licensing is hugely common, AMD license, Intel; Intel license AMD, MS license Apple, Apple License MS. Samsung license "Nokia", Nokia license "Samsung".
It's only when one doesn't cough up that the sue balls start. It's only the IP trolls that don't do this, they want you money for nothing in return.
I don't think nVidia needs to attack ATI/AMD at all. They are in a pretty fair market, with the competition between nVidia and AMD being pretty good - the market bounces between one and the other being the "best" for short periods of time.
Whereas, nVidia don't have a huge share of the mobile GPU market. The barely have a small share to be honest. So nVidia needs to do this in order to stop their competitors unfairly using their IP to beat them at their own game.
Or something like that.
I heard rumors that the reason Nvidia GPUs were dropped from the Macbook line was because Nvidia went sniffing around Apple demanding they license some GPU patents.
Maybe they did so, or maybe Apple came up with some patents of their own (perhaps CPU patents from one of their acquisitions like P.A. Semi or Intrinsity) that they were able to hold against Nvidia and enter a cross licensing deal.
Since Apple hasn't been sued, they've either reached some sort of agreement, or we can look for the suit against Apple to be announced in the near future.
Samsung makes the Exynos chip.
Nope the Eyxnos Chip is just a System on (a) Chip. Analogous to say the CPU in your Beige Box! You would still need some type of GPU... In the case of Samsung either a Malli or PowerVR with which to power the Display. Thus One assumes that this then becomes the "focus" of this Sueball.
FYI: Malli = ARM, and PowerVR are PowerVR, and both have nothing to do with Samsung other then Licensing their "Tech" to Samsung who use it to build their Phablets.
Samsung may produce the Exynos SoC, but both the CPU and GPU are actually licensed designs from ARM (that includes the Mali, the actual infringing component--it's not unique to Samsung as many ARM SoCs use it). Most of Samsung's tweaking concerning the Exynos is on the CPU end, which isn't being sued. So Samsung could still point fingers: this time at ARM, who made the original GPU design.
"Except with ARM designs you can do whatever you want with it, add stuff, replace stuff or not include anything not required."
But that's not recommended for GPUs because they're already designed (by specialists in the field) to draw every last bit of performance per watt. Omitting some stuff to trade performance for silicon space, maybe, but altering too much stuff means lots of sensitive recoding to make the software work on it. AFAIK, all the SoCs in use today use more or less stock GPU designs like the Mali 400.
Even when it comes to tweaking the CPU, there's still the basic spec to follow in order to maintain compatibility.
> naming all three major competitors to Nvidia's own Tegra tech.
... and there we have it - they want to own the mobile graphics space.
From the patent titles it all looks a bit thin.
I did most of this stuff in a computer graphics and supercomputing classes in the early 1990's. Moving the software to hardware is neither novel nor non-obvious nor is "... on a single platform" an invention, that's expected consolidation.
I suspect the chaps at Hercules who built graphics cards to put pictures on IBM text-only displays (well before nVidia was founded) might be surprised to hear nVidia invented the GPU. I'd be surprised if most micros from the 80's didn't have graphics chips for "lighting up displays."
As I recall, both sides sued each other. offsetting each other in a patent war. In the end, 3dfx bet on the wrong horse (please direct your attention to the Voodoo5, a card so ungainly it needed its own external power supply to work properly--plus the FANS). People went with ATI and nVidia for more practical reasons, which left 3dfx in the cold and eventually borged by nVidia.
As I seem to recall... The problem with the Voodoo5, was the fact that in the end it was little more then Vaporware. No doubt the Patent War, and insane Power needed to run it kept its overall development way behind schedule. But, I like many other diehard 3dfx fans at the time desperately wanted that card back then.
I'd dare say that 3dfx were way ahead of the Game already then, trying to make do with the sh--y AGP specs. For as soon as 3dfx went... As they say 'round these Parts "Tits up!". Along comes the PCIe Slot, and the now excepted External Power Supply. And no one has managed to blink even once.
As I recall, 3dfx barely missed the turn of the millennium when nVidia borged them, and the PCI Express standard didn't come out until 2004. That's a pretty lengthy interval for "as soon as". As you mentioned, 3dfx was too ambitious. They lost the plot. Not only did they misfire catering to the hardcore set, they lost the more mainstream buyers.
Though I should note that an external power hookup from the PSU developed independently of PCI Express. I actually own a broken ATI All-in-Wonder AGP card that took an external power feed, either from a floppy-style connector or from the connectors we now associate with PCI Express Power.
While some people state, and probably accurately, that they are going after their direct competitors, I would also note that the article states that Nvidia is pursuing this because of a failure on the part of these entities to engage in a patent licensing scheme. I would imagine that part of the reason why Nvidia hasn't had a patent lawsuit in all this time is that most companies probably are already engaged in licensing agreements for their technologies.
But I seem to remember programmable shaders and GPUs long before nvidia had them (and I was using their products back in the TNT days)
Of course the patent people don't actually bother to look and see if Prior Art actually exists (because they don't understand what they are issuing patents for)
"Of course the patent people don't actually bother to look and see if Prior Art actually exists (because they don't understand what they are issuing patents for)"
It's worse than that. They only get paid for approved patents, so it's not in their interest to decline them.
The integration of 3D graphics processing functions, something which used to take a large circuit board, into a single chip was something that was going to happen, whether NVidia or some other company. It's a natural evolution of technology. The idea that they can patent it and stop other manufacturers from reducing their designs from say a 100 chip solution to a one chip solution is farcical. Might as well tell the entire world wide electronics industry "You can't integrate your logic onto a single chip, you have to stick with your existing architecture comprising multiple chips".
"The integration of 3D graphics processing functions, something which used to take a large circuit board, into a single chip was something that was going to happen, whether NVidia or some other company."
Indeed, the integration of XYZ functions into a single chip has much provable prior art, dating back to 1980s microcomputers and beyond.
Intersting point here. If Samsung buys chips from Qualcomm in good faith and without knowing about the internals beyond the published literature, and if Qualcomm is allegedly infringing an NVidia patent within that chip, does that make Samsung liable? Especially, liable going back in time to before the allegation was even made?
If so, I'm slightly surprised that any large company is willing to buy VLSI subsystems from a small(er) company, and that patents haven't yet caused all progress on the hardware front to cease!
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