News - HTC grabs S3 Graphics IP from Via for $300 million

[HEXUS]

Now HTC has its own graphics chip technology.

Read more.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

So who are VIA going to use for their own chipsets now?? AFAIK,their IGPs were an important part of their platform.

[scaryjim]

is ViaChrome an S3 design, or have they licensed that from someone else? If not, they will presumably have negotiated a favourable licensing deal as part of the sale. I'm pretty sure Via's own techs will be familiar with designing the GPU portion of their chipsets based on existing IP, whether that's owned by Via or licensed from a third party.

[aidanjt]

They probably developed their own graphics solution, or divided up the patents. Lets be honest, VIA hasn't exactly produced, nor particularly required, any non-trivial IGP, and they really need is a simple 2d framebuffer, which is really quite basic stuff. I'd say HTC could make more use of S3's 3D patents.

[Scott B]

is ViaChrome an S3 design, or have they licensed that from someone else? If not, they will presumably have negotiated a favourable licensing deal as part of the sale. I'm pretty sure Via's own techs will be familiar with designing the GPU portion of their chipsets based on existing IP, whether that's owned by Via or licensed from a third party.

Cher Wang will probably have ensured the sale went well for all concerned: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cher_Wang

[Rys]

Late to the thread, but VIA have a license for the graphics tech as part of the deal, so they'll still carry on using it.