Solid set of results from IMG this morning with some nice surprises.
Overall PTP were a bit above most estimates, with licensing the standout performer (as suspected), royalties volume was lower than expected but there will be 'substantial acceleration' in H2 - it is due to the timing of releases of the key devices (Android 4.0 and iOS5 and Kindle Fire etc) - the actual royalty revenue was within range though due to a higher ASP average (31c per chip vs. 27c at FY).
The big surprise was the naming of QUALCOMM as a licensee of the display IP - a major agreement and for IMG surely a 'foot in the door' . The license extension with ST/E (a Rogue licensee) was also intriguing (one of the presentation slides confirms ST/E has also licensed PowerVR 5 now)
The Tier 1 UCC licensee was not named but most are now agreed it is Broadcom.
Plenty of mentions for Android and Windows 8 (where IMG will be very strong via TI/Intel etc). Committed SoCs are up by 10 from the FY results and shipping SoCs by 6, further evidence of IMG still being in the rapid phase of expansion/development 'early days' as HY puts it.
Analyst meeting this morning followed by the IMG Roadshow this week.
Slides:
http://www.imgtec.com/corporate/presentations/Interim11/index.asp
Great stuff IMG!
Full rns (long):
http://www.imgtec.com/corporate/presentations/interim11/Interims-final-13-12-11.pdf
Summary
Adjusted pre-tax profit* jumps 52% to £15.3m; driven by strong licensing and
continued royalty revenue growth
Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG, “Imagination”, “the Group”), a leading multimedia,
communications and embedded processor technology company, today announces results for the six months to 31
October 2011.
Financial highlights
Group half-year revenue up 28% to £56.3m (2010: £44.1m)
o Technology revenues increased 41% to £42.6m (2010: £30.3m)
Licensing revenues up 65%; high levels of activity across IP portfolio
Royalty revenue up 26%; 29% on a US dollar basis
o PURE £13.7m (2010: £13.8m)
Tough retail environment in UK offset by strong overseas growth
Adjusted pre-tax profit* up 52% to £15.3m (2010: £10.1m)
Reported pre-tax profit up 35% to £10.4m (2010: £7.7m)
Adjusted earnings per share* up 48% to 4.9p (2010: 3.3p**)
Reported earnings per share 3.0p (2010: 4.8p)
o Reduction due to a £3.9m tax credit in 2010 compared to a £2.7m tax charge in current year
o No UK tax payable, £18.3m deferred tax asset as at 31 October 2011
Cash balance increased to £56.1m at 31 Oct 2011 (30 April 2011: £49.4m)
* The reconciliation from reported results to adjusted results is set out in Note 6.
** Using normalised tax rate of 26%
Business highlights
Technology business
Royalties and design wins
Partner chips shipped in the period increased to 123m units (2010: 107m) and substantial acceleration
expected in the second half, post October product launches
Significant volume shipments in mobile phone, tablets/personal computing, personal media players, TV/STB,
digital radio and automotive markets
Significant growth in chip design wins with 125 active partner chips (2010: 98); 54 in production (2010: 42)
Average royalty rate strengthened due to enhancing mix of IP in each chip
Licensing
Strong licensing activities
o Addition of several new key partners including MStar, Ricoh, Qualcomm, Rockchipo Many new and extended agreements with existing partners including Sony, Intel, Mediatek, Renesas,
Samsung, Sigma, Realtek
15+ important agreements involving 22+ silicon IP cores – almost doubling over the same period last year
o Across all markets - mobile phone, digital TV/STB (set top boxes), Personal Media Player (PMP), mobile
computing/tablets/netbooks, in-car navigation/dashboard and industrial/enterprise equipment
o Included graphics, video, display, broadcast/connectivity and processor silicon IP cores and HelloSoft VoIP
technologies
Significantly increased and active pipeline of prospects across all IP families
Acquisitions
Integration of HelloSoft and Caustic Graphics progressing to plan. Positive initial commercial developments for
both businesses
PURE business
Continued softness in UK revenues offset by momentum in overseas growth
o On-going tight economic environment and cautious retailers in the UK
o Continued DAB adoption worldwide and growing demand for PURE‟s connected radios
Continued strategic development and path-finding role
o Focus on development of technologies for digital broadcast, connected devices and Cloud solutions
Key recent new products launched
o PURE Music cloud-based on-demand music service announced and very well received
o Highway in-car digital radio and audio adapter with Halfords as the initial exclusive retailer
Hossein Yassaie, Chief Executive, commented:
“The continued strong demand for our technologies has again resulted in a material jump in our
half-year revenues and profits.
“As demonstrated by very strong licensing revenue growth, our technologies, due to technical and
ecosystem advantages, are in demand and are being adopted more widely across new and existing
partners, creating a solid base for continued momentum in future volume growth.
“Most of these markets are still at early stages of transition and/or development and have large
growth potential, making our stated goal of 1bn annual unit shipment within five years a realistic
objective.
“Despite the current slow-down in consumer spending, PURE continues to effectively showcase and
help to drive key strategic technologies. We expect to see an improvement in this division over the
medium term, driven by international markets and new product opportunities.
“Whilst acknowledging the on-going challenges to the global economy, we remain confident of our
continued good progress in the current financial year and beyond, given the fundamental
strengthening of our business on the back of a very active and growing pipeline of licensing
prospects, the growth in design wins and the momentum in our chip volume.”
END
IMG
Tuesday 13 December 2011
Friday 9 December 2011
TI Q4 mid-quarter update
TI lowered revenue expectations due to lower demand across most of their segments, apart from Apps Processors which are doing very well.
Excerpts:
Ron Slaymaker:
' I mentioned the one bright spot is Wireless, and there our OMAP revenue is doing very well this quarter. Just as a reminder, we're now seeing the benefit of customer programs that have ramped into production using our latest OMAP 4 processor. Those customer programs include Samsung's Nexus smartphone, which is our first production program based on Google's Ice Cream Sandwich reference design; Samsung's GALAXY S II smartphone, Motorola's DROID BIONIC and RAZR smartphones, LG's Thrill smartphone with its 3D playback and capture feature. And then most recently, the Amazon Fire tablet and the Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet are both based upon OMAP 4.'
'Well, yes. OMAP is doing better than expected. I can't quantify it at this point in the quarter, but I would just say OMAP is growing very nicely, and we'll have more details for you in January. But we expected good growth out of it and it's delivering even better growth. '
END
No doubt this will be reflected in IMG's H1 royalty volume next week.
Meanwhile, the usual analyst games (UBS, Numis) have commenced in the week prior to interims, with deliberate omissions and distortions of the truth trying to knock IMG - we'll let IMG's numbers and HY do the talking next Tuesday.
Licensing, and royalties will be very strong with positive outlook, Pure not so great but then all the R&D for Cloud/Meta/Ensigma gets loaded into that (otherwise it would be profitable). Will the mystery Tier 1 UCC Ensigma licensee be revealed (or a Broad hint given at the analyst meeting )?
Excerpts:
Ron Slaymaker:
' I mentioned the one bright spot is Wireless, and there our OMAP revenue is doing very well this quarter. Just as a reminder, we're now seeing the benefit of customer programs that have ramped into production using our latest OMAP 4 processor. Those customer programs include Samsung's Nexus smartphone, which is our first production program based on Google's Ice Cream Sandwich reference design; Samsung's GALAXY S II smartphone, Motorola's DROID BIONIC and RAZR smartphones, LG's Thrill smartphone with its 3D playback and capture feature. And then most recently, the Amazon Fire tablet and the Barnes & Noble NOOK Tablet are both based upon OMAP 4.'
'Well, yes. OMAP is doing better than expected. I can't quantify it at this point in the quarter, but I would just say OMAP is growing very nicely, and we'll have more details for you in January. But we expected good growth out of it and it's delivering even better growth. '
END
No doubt this will be reflected in IMG's H1 royalty volume next week.
Meanwhile, the usual analyst games (UBS, Numis) have commenced in the week prior to interims, with deliberate omissions and distortions of the truth trying to knock IMG - we'll let IMG's numbers and HY do the talking next Tuesday.
Licensing, and royalties will be very strong with positive outlook, Pure not so great but then all the R&D for Cloud/Meta/Ensigma gets loaded into that (otherwise it would be profitable). Will the mystery Tier 1 UCC Ensigma licensee be revealed (or a Broad hint given at the analyst meeting )?
Monday 5 December 2011
New partnership with Ricoh
Interesting agreement announced today by IMG, with Ricoh, the large Japanese (10/11 sales circa. US $24B) company. Another example of IMG reaching beyond traditional semis and dealing with product manufacturers directly.
Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG; "Imagination"), a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property ("SoC IP"), has signed a license agreement with Ricoh Company, Ltd., a worldwide leader in digital office equipment and advanced document management solutions and services, for IP cores from Imagination's PowerVR family.
Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG; "Imagination"), a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property ("SoC IP"), has signed a license agreement with Ricoh Company, Ltd., a worldwide leader in digital office equipment and advanced document management solutions and services, for IP cores from Imagination's PowerVR family.
Under the terms of its licensing arrangements, Imagination receives license fees and royalty revenues on SoCs incorporating Imagination's IP.
Sunday 20 November 2011
IMG in Tokyo
At Embedded Technology 2011 (Japan), IMG released a sort of Technology Update:
The most striking things for me were :
1. We are now up to 8 Rogue licensees ( 4 declared, 4 not yet declared)
2. 70% market share for PowerVR GPUs (attach rate for VPUs is 40%)
3. The continued emphasis on the RPU communication IP cores becoming integrated fully on-chip via Ensigma UCC, Meta and Flow technologies. IMG clearly sees RPU integration into multimedia SoCs as the next big wave (following GPU/VPU integration) - it's early days.
IMG have stated they already have a Tier 1 Semi licensee for Ensigma UCC (in addition to SiS) - strongly suspected by Imagineers to be one of Qualcomm or Broadcom (my money is on the latter) and have strong interest from other leading players. By this time next year we should have a growing list of RPU licensees imo (provided they allow IMG to announce),and analysts will have to factor this in to their estimates (pretty much ignored yet because the Tier 1 has not been named).
Interims are round the corner....
Tokyo, Japan: Imagination Technologies, a leading multimedia and communications technologies company, says that it believes three key trends will transform the consumer electronics industry and also drive many new vital emerging markets in the next few years. These trends are:
1. Parallel software revolution: high performance, ultra-low power GPUs (graphics processing units) that are best known for powering the user interfaces and games in smartphones today will become the ‘heavy lifting’ processors of tomorrows SoCs. GPUs will become vastly more powerful thanks to their scalable parallel processing capabilities, triggering a mass market parallel software revolution.
2. Connected products have just begun: connectivity to the internet will become a ’must-have’ feature for not only every consumer product, but an emerging array of broader products from healthcare equipment to home automation systems, resulting in billions of new connected products.
3. On-chip RPUs: highly programmable communications capabilities, built using RPUs (radio processing unit) that support a broad range of major global connectivity and broadcast receiver standards, will be essential for the next wave of integration. RPUs will become fully integrated on-chip, just as Imagination predicted would happen for GPUs more than ten years ago, to achieve the high performance, low cost, low power consumption characteristics that consumer and emerging markets will expect as standard.
Say Tony King-Smith, VP marketing, Imagination: “Imagination’s business has always been focused on enabling new markets as well as taking full advantage of discontinuities in the evolution of more established and familiar product categories. Our PowerVR GPU and VPU (video processor) technologies continue to enable profound transformations in user experiences in an ever broader array of consumer and mobile products, resulting in consumers now expecting these same user experiences on every device they use.
“Given our experience in these markets, and our strategic relationships with many of the world’s leading semiconductor, end product, content, applications and internet technology companies, we are increasingly confident that our Ensigma RPU communications IP cores, complemented by our Meta connected processors and Flow connectivity technologies, are destined to power many of the next wave of ubiquitous cloud-connected smart devices and systems throughout the home, car, office and factory, as well as enabling innovative new mobile and embedded products that touch everyone’s lives.”
Full statement is here (quite long)
http://www.imgtec.com/News/Release/index.asp?NewsID=658The most striking things for me were :
1. We are now up to 8 Rogue licensees ( 4 declared, 4 not yet declared)
2. 70% market share for PowerVR GPUs (attach rate for VPUs is 40%)
3. The continued emphasis on the RPU communication IP cores becoming integrated fully on-chip via Ensigma UCC, Meta and Flow technologies. IMG clearly sees RPU integration into multimedia SoCs as the next big wave (following GPU/VPU integration) - it's early days.
IMG have stated they already have a Tier 1 Semi licensee for Ensigma UCC (in addition to SiS) - strongly suspected by Imagineers to be one of Qualcomm or Broadcom (my money is on the latter) and have strong interest from other leading players. By this time next year we should have a growing list of RPU licensees imo (provided they allow IMG to announce),and analysts will have to factor this in to their estimates (pretty much ignored yet because the Tier 1 has not been named).
Interims are round the corner....
Monday 14 November 2011
Renesas signs up for Rogue
A 'biggie' announced today by IMG:
Renesas Electronics and Renesas Mobile License Imagination Technologies' PowerVR Series6 Graphics Technologies
London, UK and TOKYO, Japan, November 14, 2011--Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG; "Imagination"), a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property (SoC IP), Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSE: 6723; "Renesas"), a premier provider of advanced semiconductor solutions, and Renesas Mobile Corporation ("Renesas Mobile"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Renesas Electronics and an innovative supplier of advanced cellular semiconductor solutions and platforms, today announced that Imagination and Renesas Electronics have signed a multiuse license agreement for IP from Imagination's PowerVR Series6 'Rogue' graphics family.
Renesas Mobile, an innovative supplier of advanced cellular semiconductor solutions and platforms, will initially deploy Imagination's technologies in its cellular platforms for high-performance smartphones, tablets, and in-car infotainment, and the technology will also be used by Renesas Electronics in its SoC portfolio to address additional consumer markets.
The PowerVR Series6 GPU family, codenamed 'Rogue', enables unrivalled GFLOPS performance per mm2 and per mW for all APIs. These will enable Renesas Mobile's future products to deliver advanced graphics performance including highly featured user interfaces, ultra-fast and exciting gaming experiences and rich applications that exceed the expectations and desires of users.
PowerVR Series6 delivers not only a clear technology advantage and exceptional roadmap, driven by one of the largest teams of graphics engineers in the world, but also an extensive ecosystem of third party developers which has created hundreds of thousands of applications optimised for PowerVR enabled devices to date.
Toshihiro Hattori, Vice President of SoC Business Division, Renesas Mobile Corporation, said:
"Advanced graphics performance is a key factor in creating intuitive User Interfaces, which are becoming increasingly important for smartphone and future automotive infotainment systems. Imagination Technologies is a long-standing IP partner of Renesas Mobile and Renesas Electronics for advanced graphics used in SoC products. The new PowerVR Series6 will enable us to provide attractive solutions for many markets and users."
Tony King-Smith, VP marketing, Imagination Technologies, said:
"We are delighted to continue our strategic partnership with Renesas with this multiuse agreement for PowerVR Series6. Renesas is a long-standing partner of Imagination in graphics, and has consistently delivered outstanding SoCs with advanced and compelling PowerVR-based graphics capabilities. This latest expansion of our partnership will help both companies to further drive and exploit the latest graphics trends."
Under the terms of its licensing arrangements Imagination receives license fees and royalty revenues on shipment of chips incorporating Imagination's IP.
END
Back in the day, Renesas (and TI with OMAP 2) were pretty much first out of the gate with 3D HW acceleration for mobiles (NTT DoCoMo of Japan) - that laid the foundation for game-changers like the Nokia N95, and the rest is history.
Renesas have been a hugely loyal and supportive partner for IMG ever since that time. Great to see it continuing with Rogue.
Also interesting to note that Rogue is licensed both by Renesas Electronics and Renesas Mobile, I guess we will see the significance of this in due course.
So we now have 4 disclosed Rogue licensees (Mediatek, TI, ST-E, Renesas) and 3 undisclosed (2 of which will be Apple and Intel of course). I would guess Sony is now favourite for the mystery 3rd undisclosed licensee but who knows ? We do know (from AGM) that demand for Rogue is very strong, but IMG have to carefully manage this with regard to level of engineering support etc.
Well done IMG.
Thursday 10 November 2011
Samsung comes back to Imagination Tech
This morning the following exciting news was released:
Licenses high-performance multiprocessor graphics core to Samsung Electronics
Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG; "Imagination"), a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property ("SoC IP"), has signed a license agreement with Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. ("Samsung") for IP from Imagination's PowerVR SGX MP multiprocessor graphics family.
Samsung will deploy Imagination's technologies in multiple SoCs targeting mobile and consumer markets.
Under the terms of its licensing arrangements, Imagination receives licence fees and royalty revenues on SoCs incorporating Imagination's IP.
END
It is not clear at this stage which SGX MP core/s are licensed but either way this is a hugely significant move. Many analysts had interpreted/misrepresented Samsung LSI's graphics agreement with ARM as a wholesale move away from IMG.
HY had continued to point out IMG have an ongoing relationship with Samsung,(indeed Hummingbird SoCs still ship in large volumes), and there would be future opportunities. It is also the nature of Samsung to use several vendors.
This agreement today proves IMG remain an important partner for Samsung and is another setback for ARM Mali.
Tuesday 25 October 2011
TI Q3 and Renesas news
As we already know, TI's OMAP business is going great guns, from the Q3 CC last night:
'Our OMAP revenue should continue to benefit in the quarters ahead as our latest customer programs continue to ramp into production.
Recently announced programs that are based on our OMAP 4 platform include: Samsung's Nexus smartphone, which will be our first OMAP production program based on Google's Ice Cream Sandwich reference platform; also, Samsung's Galaxy SII smartphone; Motorola's Droid Bionic and Droid RAZR smartphones; LG's Thrill smartphone, which is the first to feature 3D playback and capture; and the recently announced Amazon Fire tablet. A great lineup of customer products with more to come.'
And in Q/A, a clear reference to the apparent early Android tablet market penetration of Nvidia's Tegra 2 (sell-through volume very low of course):
' We have to win our business, and re-win our business everyday. But I would say the same time, for a lot of these customers, TI has been a long-term supplier of many products into their handsets. My own view, as I think Honeycomb was a bit of an anomaly especially on the tablet side because there was a race by many OEMs to have some type of demonstration product available at last year's Consumer Electronics show, and that drove at least what I would say was very visible as when from maybe another supplier. And as I would have described even back in last January, a lot of those same OEMs that were demonstrating platform space on another supplier at Consumer Electronics Show, we had active development programs underway at that same point in time with OMAP. So I think the difference is we are a supplier that they've had a history with. They're comfortable. They know we can support both their business terms, as well as the kind of volume production requirements that operationally these high-volume handsets require.'
In addition, we have this announcement from Renesas at 4G World:
October 2011 - Renesas Mobile Corporation, an innovative supplier of advanced cellular semiconductor solutions and platforms, will demonstrate its high performance 3D mobile platform, the MP5225, for Android-based smartphones at 4G World 2011 in Chicago (24-27 October, Renesas Mobile Stand 2025). Incorporating dual ARM™ Cortex™ A9's running at 1.2 GHz and an advanced multi-core PowerVR™ Series5XT MP Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) from Imagination Technologies, the platform represents a significant step towards delivering a games console quality experience on a mobile phone.
The MP5225 platform has been designed to deliver outstanding performance with Android™. At its heart is the R-Mobile APE5R state-of-the-art low-power, high-performance application processor, which includes the industry's leading multi-core mobile graphics engine, PowerVR SGX543 MP2 from Imagination Technologies, to deliver stunning class-leading 2D/3D graphics.
IMG's own TKS had this to say:
"Graphics performance is fundamental to the Android user experiences in both UI and apps-something Imagination understands very well thanks to our close working relationship with Google on every release of Android from v2.1 "Éclair" to the latest v4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich", said Tony King-Smith, VP Marketing, Imagination. "Renesas Mobile is delivering tremendous mobile GPU performance to smartphone and tablet designers and apps developers thanks to our PowerVR multicore GPU solutions. As Android grows in importance as a major consumer software platform, we believe Renesas Mobile is very well placed to power truly class-leading devices for Android."
'Our OMAP revenue should continue to benefit in the quarters ahead as our latest customer programs continue to ramp into production.
Recently announced programs that are based on our OMAP 4 platform include: Samsung's Nexus smartphone, which will be our first OMAP production program based on Google's Ice Cream Sandwich reference platform; also, Samsung's Galaxy SII smartphone; Motorola's Droid Bionic and Droid RAZR smartphones; LG's Thrill smartphone, which is the first to feature 3D playback and capture; and the recently announced Amazon Fire tablet. A great lineup of customer products with more to come.'
And in Q/A, a clear reference to the apparent early Android tablet market penetration of Nvidia's Tegra 2 (sell-through volume very low of course):
' We have to win our business, and re-win our business everyday. But I would say the same time, for a lot of these customers, TI has been a long-term supplier of many products into their handsets. My own view, as I think Honeycomb was a bit of an anomaly especially on the tablet side because there was a race by many OEMs to have some type of demonstration product available at last year's Consumer Electronics show, and that drove at least what I would say was very visible as when from maybe another supplier. And as I would have described even back in last January, a lot of those same OEMs that were demonstrating platform space on another supplier at Consumer Electronics Show, we had active development programs underway at that same point in time with OMAP. So I think the difference is we are a supplier that they've had a history with. They're comfortable. They know we can support both their business terms, as well as the kind of volume production requirements that operationally these high-volume handsets require.'
In addition, we have this announcement from Renesas at 4G World:
October 2011 - Renesas Mobile Corporation, an innovative supplier of advanced cellular semiconductor solutions and platforms, will demonstrate its high performance 3D mobile platform, the MP5225, for Android-based smartphones at 4G World 2011 in Chicago (24-27 October, Renesas Mobile Stand 2025). Incorporating dual ARM™ Cortex™ A9's running at 1.2 GHz and an advanced multi-core PowerVR™ Series5XT MP Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) from Imagination Technologies, the platform represents a significant step towards delivering a games console quality experience on a mobile phone.
The MP5225 platform has been designed to deliver outstanding performance with Android™. At its heart is the R-Mobile APE5R state-of-the-art low-power, high-performance application processor, which includes the industry's leading multi-core mobile graphics engine, PowerVR SGX543 MP2 from Imagination Technologies, to deliver stunning class-leading 2D/3D graphics.
IMG's own TKS had this to say:
"Graphics performance is fundamental to the Android user experiences in both UI and apps-something Imagination understands very well thanks to our close working relationship with Google on every release of Android from v2.1 "Éclair" to the latest v4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich", said Tony King-Smith, VP Marketing, Imagination. "Renesas Mobile is delivering tremendous mobile GPU performance to smartphone and tablet designers and apps developers thanks to our PowerVR multicore GPU solutions. As Android grows in importance as a major consumer software platform, we believe Renesas Mobile is very well placed to power truly class-leading devices for Android."
Thursday 20 October 2011
Imagination Chinese growth 2012
There was yet another interesting article in Digitimes today:
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20111019PD214.html
http://www.digitimes.com/news/a20111019PD214.html
'Major Taiwan-based IC design houses including MediaTek, MStar Semiconductor, Novatek Microelectronics, ILI Technology (Ilitek), Orise Technology and Sitronix Technology will look to smartphones for growth in 2012, industry sources have claimed. In particular, the players are expected to profit from China's booming smartphone market, th sources said.
China's local brands including Huawei Device, Lenovo and ZTE, and international brands such as Samsung Electronics are all gearing up for a surge in smartphone sales in the country, the sources indicated. The players will likely see their shipments to the China market more than double in 2012, meaning that a large increase in orders could be released to their component suppliers.
Huawei's overall handset shipments for 2011 are estimated at 19 million units, and the number will expand further to 40 million in 2012, the sources revealed. Smartphones are seen as a major growth driver, the sources said.
Huawei reportedly plans to adopt smartphone solutions from MediaTek starting 2012. The vendor currently purchases most of its handset solutions from Qualcomm.
Lenovo has set a goal of shipping 25-30 million handsets in 2012, more than doubling from the 12 million units estimated to ship in 2011, the sources noted. Its popular A60-series smartphones use 3G solutions from MediaTek.
Meanwhile, Samsung and ZTE are both expected to see their smartphone sales in China grow substantially in 2012, the sources indicated. Samsung reportedly sources panel-use driver ICs from Taiwan companies, whereas ZTE plans to launch low-priced smartphones with chipset solutions also coming from MediaTek.'
END
The 2012 estimates for Lenovo and Huawei come to 65-70 million units, whilst ZTE is larger than both of them (no.1 in China). Clearly not all these are going to contain Mediatek chips but it is clear they will account for a substantial proportion in 2012 for the above 3 players.
Add in to that Samsung, which uses Hummingbirds SoCs for many of its Chinese smartphones/tablets, Renesas with Emma Mobile EV2 shipping in volume there (and newer android SoCs coming) and also TI OMAP 3 is shipping in decent volumes in China. Then there is Apple with its well documented aggressive Chinese expansion,(and smaller players like GeneralPlus). Intel also has good infrastructure in China and will release Medfield-based products no doubt.
Looks like 2012 is gonna be huge for IMG in China. Volume is anyone's guess !
Wednesday 19 October 2011
Imagination & Android
There's been a lot of IMG-related big news in the past 24 hours...
1st off , Apple Q4 revealed they shifted 11m iPads, 17m iPhones, and approx. 4m iPod Touches, giving about 32m royalty volume for IMG (plus some iPod Nano at lower ASP). This was a 'product transition' quarter for Apple, as they had already stated last time round, but some analysts did not pay attention. More importantly Apple signalled a record-busting Xmas quarter to come, which is obviously excellent news for IMG.
I am expecting in the region of 45-50m royalty volume for Xmas (25m iPhones, 15m iPads and 10m iPod Touches) quarter.
Next, during Intel Q3 CC Otellini confirmed that Medfield would ship in smartphones/tablets 1st half of 2012. It is not clear exactly which SGX core is contained in Medfield at this point but it's definitely IMG (graphics + video).
Then we had the Motorola Mobility event during which S.Jha unveiled another Android flagship phone- Motorola Droid Razr (for Verizon), which uses OMAP 4430.
Finally there was the OMAP 4460 powered Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the 1st Google Experience ICS (Android 4.0) smartphone.
We can expect lots more OMAP 4 powered ICS products in the next 12 months.
IMG are really going great guns right now on all fronts.
1st off , Apple Q4 revealed they shifted 11m iPads, 17m iPhones, and approx. 4m iPod Touches, giving about 32m royalty volume for IMG (plus some iPod Nano at lower ASP). This was a 'product transition' quarter for Apple, as they had already stated last time round, but some analysts did not pay attention. More importantly Apple signalled a record-busting Xmas quarter to come, which is obviously excellent news for IMG.
I am expecting in the region of 45-50m royalty volume for Xmas (25m iPhones, 15m iPads and 10m iPod Touches) quarter.
Next, during Intel Q3 CC Otellini confirmed that Medfield would ship in smartphones/tablets 1st half of 2012. It is not clear exactly which SGX core is contained in Medfield at this point but it's definitely IMG (graphics + video).
Then we had the Motorola Mobility event during which S.Jha unveiled another Android flagship phone- Motorola Droid Razr (for Verizon), which uses OMAP 4430.
Finally there was the OMAP 4460 powered Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the 1st Google Experience ICS (Android 4.0) smartphone.
We can expect lots more OMAP 4 powered ICS products in the next 12 months.
IMG are really going great guns right now on all fronts.
Tuesday 18 October 2011
Mediatek ramping up
Taiwanese chip powerhouse and committed IMG partner Mediatek are starting to ramp up volume of the 3.75G chip MT6573, according to Digitimes:
"China's brand-name handset vendors, including Lenovo, ZTE and TCL, have ordered more MT6573 3.75G smartphone chips from MediaTek, according to industry sources. To meet the continued rising demand, the fabless IC firm has asked for additional foundry capacity equivalent to 6,000-8,000 12-inch wafers from United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), the sources indicated."
MediaTek is expected to see monthly shipments of its MT6573 chipset solutions to reach 1-1.5 million units in October and November, and continue expanding to 3.5-4 million in December, the sources estimated. The growing shipments will boost the company's sales in the fourth quarter of 2011, the sources said.
In addition, acknowledging the MT6573's popularity, Huawei Technologies reportedly is asking MediaTek to accelerate development of the chip's successor, the sources said. Dubbed the MT6575, the next-generation single-chip solution could start shipping as early as the first quarter of 2012, the sources indicated."END
In addition to this Daiwa Securities are reporting that Motorola Mobility is selecting the MT6573 for its Chinese W-CDMA handsets, where it already does good volume.
Huawei's usual partner is global no.1 mobile chip vendor Qualcomm, so a switch would be very significant.The MT6575 in 2012 could conceivably use the SGX 5-XT (license announced in May) given that it is a 'next generation' chip ?
There is also MT6513 , the 2.75G version of MT6573, already shipping in volume.An IMG'd tablet chip is also very likely for 2012.
Putting all this together in my opinion is likely to result in IMG's royalty volume from Mediatek exceeding 50m for 2012.Pretty soon they may well be rivalling TI/OMAP for IMG chip volume, 2nd only to the mighty Apple.
Wonder how long it will take 'analysts' to figure this out?
A while ago , ARM's Mali PR team appeared to have developed a strategy of trying to steal IMG's (hard-earned)thunder by announcing a CPU+Mali deal with semis that had recently announced a PVR tie-up, Mediatek being a case in point. The anti-IMG brigade made much of this, but we suspected it was little more than a PR stunt - now we can see the reality of the situation.....
"China's brand-name handset vendors, including Lenovo, ZTE and TCL, have ordered more MT6573 3.75G smartphone chips from MediaTek, according to industry sources. To meet the continued rising demand, the fabless IC firm has asked for additional foundry capacity equivalent to 6,000-8,000 12-inch wafers from United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), the sources indicated."
MediaTek is expected to see monthly shipments of its MT6573 chipset solutions to reach 1-1.5 million units in October and November, and continue expanding to 3.5-4 million in December, the sources estimated. The growing shipments will boost the company's sales in the fourth quarter of 2011, the sources said.
In addition, acknowledging the MT6573's popularity, Huawei Technologies reportedly is asking MediaTek to accelerate development of the chip's successor, the sources said. Dubbed the MT6575, the next-generation single-chip solution could start shipping as early as the first quarter of 2012, the sources indicated."END
In addition to this Daiwa Securities are reporting that Motorola Mobility is selecting the MT6573 for its Chinese W-CDMA handsets, where it already does good volume.
Huawei's usual partner is global no.1 mobile chip vendor Qualcomm, so a switch would be very significant.The MT6575 in 2012 could conceivably use the SGX 5-XT (license announced in May) given that it is a 'next generation' chip ?
There is also MT6513 , the 2.75G version of MT6573, already shipping in volume.An IMG'd tablet chip is also very likely for 2012.
Putting all this together in my opinion is likely to result in IMG's royalty volume from Mediatek exceeding 50m for 2012.Pretty soon they may well be rivalling TI/OMAP for IMG chip volume, 2nd only to the mighty Apple.
Wonder how long it will take 'analysts' to figure this out?
A while ago , ARM's Mali PR team appeared to have developed a strategy of trying to steal IMG's (hard-earned)thunder by announcing a CPU+Mali deal with semis that had recently announced a PVR tie-up, Mediatek being a case in point. The anti-IMG brigade made much of this, but we suspected it was little more than a PR stunt - now we can see the reality of the situation.....
Tuesday 11 October 2011
iPhone 4S benchmarks appearing
Preliminary iPhone 4S benchmarks are starting to come in from sources like Anandtech:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4951/iphone-4s-preliminary-benchmarks-800mhz-a5-slightly-slower-gpu-than-ipad-2
As expected, Samsung's high-flying Galaxy SII gets 'owned' by the iPhone 4S thanks to the Apple A5 SoC featuring SGX 543MP2. More proof that Samsung's decision to go with ARM Mali graphics instead of sticking with PowerVR was a big mistake.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/4951/iphone-4s-preliminary-benchmarks-800mhz-a5-slightly-slower-gpu-than-ipad-2
As expected, Samsung's high-flying Galaxy SII gets 'owned' by the iPhone 4S thanks to the Apple A5 SoC featuring SGX 543MP2. More proof that Samsung's decision to go with ARM Mali graphics instead of sticking with PowerVR was a big mistake.
Friday 7 October 2011
PowerVR sewing up the DTV SoC market
Well, IMG today announced that Mediatek has licensed another SGX 5XT core, this time for the DTV market. Between MStar and Mediatek ,IMG now has the top 2 global providers of DTV SoC on-board. Further confirmation, for those who still need it, of HY's confidence with respect to the Home market at the AGM.
This comes the day after the sad death of Steve Jobs, there are not enough superlatives to describe this person . In my view, without the support and backing of this amazing individual, IMG would be just a small fraction of the global graphics/video IP leader they have become - that is just my opinion.
Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG; "Imagination") – a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property ("SoC IP") - reports that it has signed a license agreement with MediaTek Inc., a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital multimedia solutions, for a member of Imagination's POWERVR SGX Series5XT graphics processor family. MediaTek will deploy the technology in its future SoC devices targeting the digital TV market.
Under the terms of its licensing arrangements Imagination receives license fees, and royalty revenues on shipment of SoCs incorporating Imagination's IP
Tuesday 4 October 2011
iPhone 4S
As expected, Apple took back the title of Best Smartphone in the world with the iPhone 4S.
Samsung's Galaxy SII has done excellent business of late (though still unable to keep up with iPhone 4 sales) and has also topped the Benchmarks.
With iPhone 4S, featuring the A5 Apple chip (dual core A9 + SGX 543 MP2), Apple will easily regain the top Benchmarks in the coming weeks. Anandtech has previously benchmarked the iPad 2 (A5 chip)and the results were in a different league.
IMGers can look forward to continued massive sales of iOS devices.
Samsung's Galaxy SII has done excellent business of late (though still unable to keep up with iPhone 4 sales) and has also topped the Benchmarks.
With iPhone 4S, featuring the A5 Apple chip (dual core A9 + SGX 543 MP2), Apple will easily regain the top Benchmarks in the coming weeks. Anandtech has previously benchmarked the iPad 2 (A5 chip)and the results were in a different league.
IMGers can look forward to continued massive sales of iOS devices.
Thursday 29 September 2011
PowerVR inside the Kindle Fire
Great news , confirmed by the Kindle VP as quoted in the WSJ "The Kindle Fire uses a Texas Instruments Inc. dual-core, 1 gigahertz processor".
So that's OMAP 4 then with SGX 540 inside (most likely OMAP 4430 but not confirmed).
Given the $199 price point and Amazon's huge marketing muscle this should be a huge seller.
With the impending debut of Google ICS in October , iPhone announcements on 4th October,and RIM QNX product announcements mid-October things are shaping up very well for IMG over the next month.
So that's OMAP 4 then with SGX 540 inside (most likely OMAP 4430 but not confirmed).
Given the $199 price point and Amazon's huge marketing muscle this should be a huge seller.
With the impending debut of Google ICS in October , iPhone announcements on 4th October,and RIM QNX product announcements mid-October things are shaping up very well for IMG over the next month.
Tuesday 20 September 2011
MStar licenses PowerVR Graphics IP
Another superb win for IMG with a new partner, MStar Semiconductor, the global no.1 independent DTV chip supplier. This highly aggressive Taiwanese company has taken market share from Mediatek and others in the Chinese/Asian markets over the past few years.
At the AGM , HY said he 'cannot over-emphasise design-win strength in this area' when referring to the Home/Consumer market.
At the AGM , HY said he 'cannot over-emphasise design-win strength in this area' when referring to the Home/Consumer market.
Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG; "Imagination"), a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property ("SoC IP"), has signed a multi-use license agreement with MStar Semiconductor, Inc. (MStar), a worldwide leader in Digital TV chip sales, for IP from Imagination's PowerVR SGX Series5XT graphics family.
MStar will deploy Imagination's technologies in SoCs targeting consumer markets.
Under the terms of its licensing arrangements Imagination receives license fees and royalty revenues on shipment of chips incorporating Imagination's IP.
Thursday 8 September 2011
Strong IMS from Imagination
Imagination today released the Interim Management Statement:
Imagination Technologies Group plc ('Imagination', LSE: IMG), a leader in System-on-Chip intellectual property ("SoC IP"), is today issuing its Interim Management Statement for the period from 1 May 2011 to 7 September 2011.
Overview
Following on from the strong performance in the last financial year, the Group continues to see high levels of licensing and design activities with both existing and new partners. This is driven by the strong relevance of the Group’s IP to key transitions in existing markets and the enabling of emerging markets. This growing demand continues to expand Imagination’s customer base and broaden its partners’ engagements across the range of the Group’s technologies.
Technology
There continues to be strong demand across our full range of PowerVR SGX IP Cores, including our latest SGX Series5XT. There are growing numbers of SoC design starts and of devices entering production. We are also seeing a very high level of interest and growing engagements in our next generation graphics technology, PowerVR Series6.
The fundamental technical advantages of the PowerVR architecture, its market-leading and strong roadmap, and the associated extensive and growing ecosystem are the keys to our continued success and real differentiators. These are increasingly resulting in new customers selecting or switching to Imagination’s technology.
PowerVR has become the graphics technology of choice for the mobile and embedded space, with a growing installed base in excess of 500m units and a strong ecosystem across all key operating systems.
Around 40% of partner chip volume shipping is now deploying our video technologies, driven by the growth of video content delivery. The continued strong demand for video delivery and the more recent advent of personal video telephony have meant that the licensing of our video IP cores continues to make good progress.
The Group’s multi-standard communication and broadcast IP, Ensigma UCC, is now being seen by leading players as a highly efficient solution to enable consumer devices capable of receiving a diverse range of digital broadcasts and internet connectivity (such as smart TV). As previously reported, we have already licensed several partners including a top-tier player, and expect several others currently engaged in evaluation of this technology to move forward during this financial year.
With Meta processors successfully embedded in many of Imagination’s IP cores and designed to offer multi-threading, real-time and signal-processing capabilities, the Group continues to see progress in new and emerging markets such as digital radio, streaming audio systems, smart energy and health care. Combining the Group’s processor and connectivity technologies to create the concept of a 'connected processor' backed up by client and portal software technologies is an important emerging area for the Group.
The HelloSoft Voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology is increasingly relevant as communication networks migrate from circuit-switching to internet protocol based solutions as more categories of devices become capable of connecting to the internet. The emergence of LTE networks is creating growing opportunities for this offering and driving engagements with network operators whilst VoIP is increasingly being demanded/expected for connected devices. Work is underway to further develop video capability of this software offering and to extend its support to the Group’s hardware video codec IP cores.
Overall, progress on licensing the Group’s technologies, both in terms of signed agreements and the pipeline of prospects, remains strong. As a result of this encouraging start, we expect to see licensing revenue make good progress this financial year, albeit the timing of the closure of licensing deals remains difficult to predict accurately across the year.
The progressive build-up of licensing activity over several years has led to a growing stream of new partner chips entering the pipeline. These typically take around two to three years to emerge as shipping devices. It is the visibility of this strong momentum which enables us to be confident that, even if only taking account of existing chips in the pipeline, we have a firm foundation which will result in strong royalty revenue growth over several years.
Given the momentum in customer base growth and the requirements of the growing markets we operate in, we continue to invest to scale and grow the business and the technology roadmap.Whilst we only have visibility of royalty statements from licensing partners for the first two months of the financial year, we expect to see strong unit volume and royalty revenue growth in this financial year as we move towards our target of over one billion partner chips per year within five years. This will be driven by growth across all our market sectors notably: mobile phone, portable mobile multimedia, TV/Set-Top Box and mobile computing (tablets/netbooks/low power PCs).
PURE
PURE has continued to fulfil its prime role of path-finding and promoting the Group’s technologies. The general adoption of digital radio standards overseas, particularly with German roll-out progressing, has continued to advance, albeit with variable rates of market development. We have also seen the market for connected audio devices developing globally. PURE has continued to develop leading and compelling products to address and drive these markets.
We see PURE’s groundwork in optimising our technologies for connected devices as key in enabling the Group to provide a range of cloud-ready technologies, based around Ensigma UCC and Meta. These technologies are required for the increasing number of consumer and industrial devices, which will inevitably incorporate internet/cloud-connected functionality as standard.
PURE endured difficult retail market conditions during the last financial year, particularly in the UK. Whilst the UK market remains difficult, PURE is seeing some encouraging signs in overseas markets with the progressive global roll-out of DAB and the adoption of internet connected devices. It is expected that this will feed through into revenue growth in PURE in the second half of this financial year.
Outlook
Based on the robust licensing pipeline, the momentum in the royalty revenue growth and the expected progress from PURE as overseas markets emerge, the Group continues its strong progress.
Whilst macro-economic volatility could have some impact on the rate of our development, the Board remains confident that the Group is on track for further good growth in the current financial year.
END
A very positive statement re-iterating much of the AGM flavour.
Licensing strong, royalties on track, Pure recovering, Hellosoft/Caustic integration proceeding well,growing interest in UCC and video cores.
As usual will be interesting to see what the analysts make of it after the CC this morning. Hopefully they will get the message from HY on Android ie. IMG have >50% market share.
Yesterday the US analysts were happy to believe Jen-Hsun (Nvidia CEO) with his claim of 50% market share of Android 'high-end handsets'- clearly this was nonsense given the high market shares of Qualcomm and IMG.
Imagination Technologies Group plc ('Imagination', LSE: IMG), a leader in System-on-Chip intellectual property ("SoC IP"), is today issuing its Interim Management Statement for the period from 1 May 2011 to 7 September 2011.
Overview
Following on from the strong performance in the last financial year, the Group continues to see high levels of licensing and design activities with both existing and new partners. This is driven by the strong relevance of the Group’s IP to key transitions in existing markets and the enabling of emerging markets. This growing demand continues to expand Imagination’s customer base and broaden its partners’ engagements across the range of the Group’s technologies.
Technology
There continues to be strong demand across our full range of PowerVR SGX IP Cores, including our latest SGX Series5XT. There are growing numbers of SoC design starts and of devices entering production. We are also seeing a very high level of interest and growing engagements in our next generation graphics technology, PowerVR Series6.
The fundamental technical advantages of the PowerVR architecture, its market-leading and strong roadmap, and the associated extensive and growing ecosystem are the keys to our continued success and real differentiators. These are increasingly resulting in new customers selecting or switching to Imagination’s technology.
PowerVR has become the graphics technology of choice for the mobile and embedded space, with a growing installed base in excess of 500m units and a strong ecosystem across all key operating systems.
Around 40% of partner chip volume shipping is now deploying our video technologies, driven by the growth of video content delivery. The continued strong demand for video delivery and the more recent advent of personal video telephony have meant that the licensing of our video IP cores continues to make good progress.
The Group’s multi-standard communication and broadcast IP, Ensigma UCC, is now being seen by leading players as a highly efficient solution to enable consumer devices capable of receiving a diverse range of digital broadcasts and internet connectivity (such as smart TV). As previously reported, we have already licensed several partners including a top-tier player, and expect several others currently engaged in evaluation of this technology to move forward during this financial year.
With Meta processors successfully embedded in many of Imagination’s IP cores and designed to offer multi-threading, real-time and signal-processing capabilities, the Group continues to see progress in new and emerging markets such as digital radio, streaming audio systems, smart energy and health care. Combining the Group’s processor and connectivity technologies to create the concept of a 'connected processor' backed up by client and portal software technologies is an important emerging area for the Group.
The HelloSoft Voice-over-IP (VoIP) technology is increasingly relevant as communication networks migrate from circuit-switching to internet protocol based solutions as more categories of devices become capable of connecting to the internet. The emergence of LTE networks is creating growing opportunities for this offering and driving engagements with network operators whilst VoIP is increasingly being demanded/expected for connected devices. Work is underway to further develop video capability of this software offering and to extend its support to the Group’s hardware video codec IP cores.
Overall, progress on licensing the Group’s technologies, both in terms of signed agreements and the pipeline of prospects, remains strong. As a result of this encouraging start, we expect to see licensing revenue make good progress this financial year, albeit the timing of the closure of licensing deals remains difficult to predict accurately across the year.
The progressive build-up of licensing activity over several years has led to a growing stream of new partner chips entering the pipeline. These typically take around two to three years to emerge as shipping devices. It is the visibility of this strong momentum which enables us to be confident that, even if only taking account of existing chips in the pipeline, we have a firm foundation which will result in strong royalty revenue growth over several years.
Given the momentum in customer base growth and the requirements of the growing markets we operate in, we continue to invest to scale and grow the business and the technology roadmap.Whilst we only have visibility of royalty statements from licensing partners for the first two months of the financial year, we expect to see strong unit volume and royalty revenue growth in this financial year as we move towards our target of over one billion partner chips per year within five years. This will be driven by growth across all our market sectors notably: mobile phone, portable mobile multimedia, TV/Set-Top Box and mobile computing (tablets/netbooks/low power PCs).
PURE
PURE has continued to fulfil its prime role of path-finding and promoting the Group’s technologies. The general adoption of digital radio standards overseas, particularly with German roll-out progressing, has continued to advance, albeit with variable rates of market development. We have also seen the market for connected audio devices developing globally. PURE has continued to develop leading and compelling products to address and drive these markets.
We see PURE’s groundwork in optimising our technologies for connected devices as key in enabling the Group to provide a range of cloud-ready technologies, based around Ensigma UCC and Meta. These technologies are required for the increasing number of consumer and industrial devices, which will inevitably incorporate internet/cloud-connected functionality as standard.
PURE endured difficult retail market conditions during the last financial year, particularly in the UK. Whilst the UK market remains difficult, PURE is seeing some encouraging signs in overseas markets with the progressive global roll-out of DAB and the adoption of internet connected devices. It is expected that this will feed through into revenue growth in PURE in the second half of this financial year.
Outlook
Based on the robust licensing pipeline, the momentum in the royalty revenue growth and the expected progress from PURE as overseas markets emerge, the Group continues its strong progress.
Whilst macro-economic volatility could have some impact on the rate of our development, the Board remains confident that the Group is on track for further good growth in the current financial year.
END
A very positive statement re-iterating much of the AGM flavour.
Licensing strong, royalties on track, Pure recovering, Hellosoft/Caustic integration proceeding well,growing interest in UCC and video cores.
As usual will be interesting to see what the analysts make of it after the CC this morning. Hopefully they will get the message from HY on Android ie. IMG have >50% market share.
Yesterday the US analysts were happy to believe Jen-Hsun (Nvidia CEO) with his claim of 50% market share of Android 'high-end handsets'- clearly this was nonsense given the high market shares of Qualcomm and IMG.
Tuesday 6 September 2011
Sony licenses Imagination's PowerVR graphics IP technologies
Sony licenses Imagination's PowerVR graphics IP technologies
Great news from IMG in these difficult economic times:
Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG; "Imagination"), a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property ("SoC IP"), has signed a further license agreement with Sony Corporation, ("Sony"), a leading consumer electronics company, for IP cores from Imagination's PowerVR SGX Series5XT graphics family.
Sony will deploy Imagination's technologies in SoCs targeting consumer markets.
Under the terms of the licence agreement Imagination receives licence fees and royalty revenues based on shipments of semiconductor products incorporating Imagination's IP.
END
This follows on from the original agreement a few years ago for the SGX 543MP(4) core, as used in the upcoming PS Vita. Many Sony Bravia TVs (with MotionFlow) also use IMG display cores.
Sony have obviously been impressed by the market-leading technologies , the ecosystem, and of course the people at IMG. Practically all the top companies keep coming back for more....
Tuesday 23 August 2011
AGM extras
Great blogging from Ken last Friday at the AGM using his iPad2.
Another great AGM with HY able to confidently (but with no arrogance at all) reassure investors they are in one of the world's great technology companies, with huge growth to come.
Once again the event was superbly organised and hosted by Susi Barrett and her team. The directors, management team and CEO made themselves freely available to ordinary Joe's like us.
Some key points follow, to the best of my recollection:
- now IMG is known as a 'silicon, software and cloud IP supplier' - the cloud activities will start with Pure
- the 'smartphones and tablets' aspect of the business is 'recession proof'.
- cycle time reduced to 1 year from 3, thanks to Apple
- 'expect to see big things with Nokia on the back of Windows 8'
- whilst discussing tablet market 'we expect to be party to other key products' - there was a possible clue to Amazon in there (no confirmation)
- Smartphones will be approx 50% of the total phone market within 2 years, giving IMG a TAM of 700-800 million units in this sector alone.
- IMG are about 70% of the total mobile graphics market at present
- IMG currently have approx 50% of the Android volume. Qualcomm have about 30%.
- IMG do lots of business with Samsung and are always trying to sell more IP cores to them
- In the 'home' market (TV/STB/audio etc) 'cannot overemphasise design-win strength in this area'.
- 'we are in Google reference design for multiple generations for tablets' - a clear nod to ICS/OMAP 4
- Healthcare, smartpower and security will take us from 1Bn to many billion units.
- Current run-rate of IMG'd chips is rising to 30m/month
- Demand for the next generation graphics (Rogue) is 'immense', products are 2 years away. IMG can manage 6 lead licensees for now but many more will follow.
- re-iterated 'we don't give our stuff away for free' when mentioning a competitor's claims (Mali) about Mediatek
- the 245m chip volume for 10/11 was from 48 SoCs - 67 SoCs are in design/prototype
- the 500m target was 'too close'
- big rise in Home Consumer SoCs (30) - clearly lots of deals have been done in this space but we are not privy to the names involved. We are on TV brands other than Sony but no names given.
- Regarding Hellosoft there have been multiple agreements with 'significant operators and handset OEMs' - perhaps a clue to Verizon in there. HY has met more operators in past 6 months than in his whole life.
- Regarding Caustic - very strong patents - can do 'magic stuff' when you add ray-tracing to Rogue - will help console makers differentiate from other games devices (phone/tablets etc). Will also help games developers cut costs by up to 90% ! The Caustic demo was astonishing.
- No risk of losing the really important partners - 'we are central to their platform' - Apple, Intel, Google.
- We have the best technology performance per square mm and per mW - Intel, Apple, Sony etc would not use us if this was not true. We have to 'scale' with these type of partners. When the decision is based on technology alone (ie. no politics etc) then IMG always wins.
- GPU adoption - we are only 20% along the curve (at 200m)
- in 10/11 40% of our shipments had video core inside.
- PURE/DAB+ Germany rollout starts in September, doubles our potential market. Pure would be very profitable if all the expenses/RD did not get loaded onto it.
- Licensing 'interest couldn't be better'
- ASP expected to remain @ 27c/chip this FY.
- 'would like to see IMG as a FTSE 100 company' and 'put UK on the map'.
Good luck to all fellow Imagineers.
Another great AGM with HY able to confidently (but with no arrogance at all) reassure investors they are in one of the world's great technology companies, with huge growth to come.
Once again the event was superbly organised and hosted by Susi Barrett and her team. The directors, management team and CEO made themselves freely available to ordinary Joe's like us.
Some key points follow, to the best of my recollection:
- now IMG is known as a 'silicon, software and cloud IP supplier' - the cloud activities will start with Pure
- the 'smartphones and tablets' aspect of the business is 'recession proof'.
- cycle time reduced to 1 year from 3, thanks to Apple
- 'expect to see big things with Nokia on the back of Windows 8'
- whilst discussing tablet market 'we expect to be party to other key products' - there was a possible clue to Amazon in there (no confirmation)
- Smartphones will be approx 50% of the total phone market within 2 years, giving IMG a TAM of 700-800 million units in this sector alone.
- IMG are about 70% of the total mobile graphics market at present
- IMG currently have approx 50% of the Android volume. Qualcomm have about 30%.
- IMG do lots of business with Samsung and are always trying to sell more IP cores to them
- In the 'home' market (TV/STB/audio etc) 'cannot overemphasise design-win strength in this area'.
- 'we are in Google reference design for multiple generations for tablets' - a clear nod to ICS/OMAP 4
- Healthcare, smartpower and security will take us from 1Bn to many billion units.
- Current run-rate of IMG'd chips is rising to 30m/month
- Demand for the next generation graphics (Rogue) is 'immense', products are 2 years away. IMG can manage 6 lead licensees for now but many more will follow.
- re-iterated 'we don't give our stuff away for free' when mentioning a competitor's claims (Mali) about Mediatek
- the 245m chip volume for 10/11 was from 48 SoCs - 67 SoCs are in design/prototype
- the 500m target was 'too close'
- big rise in Home Consumer SoCs (30) - clearly lots of deals have been done in this space but we are not privy to the names involved. We are on TV brands other than Sony but no names given.
- Regarding Hellosoft there have been multiple agreements with 'significant operators and handset OEMs' - perhaps a clue to Verizon in there. HY has met more operators in past 6 months than in his whole life.
- Regarding Caustic - very strong patents - can do 'magic stuff' when you add ray-tracing to Rogue - will help console makers differentiate from other games devices (phone/tablets etc). Will also help games developers cut costs by up to 90% ! The Caustic demo was astonishing.
- No risk of losing the really important partners - 'we are central to their platform' - Apple, Intel, Google.
- We have the best technology performance per square mm and per mW - Intel, Apple, Sony etc would not use us if this was not true. We have to 'scale' with these type of partners. When the decision is based on technology alone (ie. no politics etc) then IMG always wins.
- GPU adoption - we are only 20% along the curve (at 200m)
- in 10/11 40% of our shipments had video core inside.
- PURE/DAB+ Germany rollout starts in September, doubles our potential market. Pure would be very profitable if all the expenses/RD did not get loaded onto it.
- Licensing 'interest couldn't be better'
- ASP expected to remain @ 27c/chip this FY.
- 'would like to see IMG as a FTSE 100 company' and 'put UK on the map'.
Good luck to all fellow Imagineers.
Friday 19 August 2011
Clauses 11-13
Passed with no questions - the 'usual suspects' must have pulled a sickie today. There's usually a fully paid up member of the awkward squad in attendance, maybe it's an upside of the recession that they couldn't afford to come :-)
Ah hah ! I wrote too soon - he's (GNMartin) in and he's asking about the share buyback !!
Some yawnsville stuff about whether there is a cost associated to the buyback in the P&L and poor shareholder return on buybacks vs dividends.
HY says we haven't done it and would do it only to bolster the share option schemes - which sounds odd ! I thought it was to offer me, personally, above Market price for my shares as and when I fancy it
Ah hah ! I wrote too soon - he's (GNMartin) in and he's asking about the share buyback !!
Some yawnsville stuff about whether there is a cost associated to the buyback in the P&L and poor shareholder return on buybacks vs dividends.
HY says we haven't done it and would do it only to bolster the share option schemes - which sounds odd ! I thought it was to offer me, personally, above Market price for my shares as and when I fancy it
And the dull stuff
There should be a 'Surf's up'/'Right to party' clause at the start of the statutory stuff - all here acknowledge that there are already more than enough votes received to carry this stuff, the wine's out the back - who's comin' ?
Passed unanimously !
I've got a feeling there may be some q's about clauses 11-13 !
Passed unanimously !
I've got a feeling there may be some q's about clauses 11-13 !
Android
Q1 this year we are in 50% of handsets sold.
We are also involved in multiple generations of ref designs
We are also involved in multiple generations of ref designs
What's the feeling on takeovers ?
Unlikely without an enormous fight due to Intel and Apple being shareholders - will be done over their bodies
Licensing revenue
Last year HY said better than ever and we did really well, this year he said it's better than ever again, what's the feeling on whether 10% rise is high enough fornnext year ?
Stick with it :-)
Stick with it :-)
Who do you see as the major competitors in the various markets we are in or want to be in
Qualcomm are above NVIDIA in terms of mobile graphics, and they are one if the few who haven't taken our graphics - yet.
Video - no-one else out there is really competing, most of the people there are in house and Market is moving away from that.
Comms - moving away from monolithic solutions to flexible solutions.
Video - no-one else out there is really competing, most of the people there are in house and Market is moving away from that.
Comms - moving away from monolithic solutions to flexible solutions.
Do you see the recession as a major threat to the business
The first dip didn't have much of a major impact.
The second dip looks as though people are thinking about things more, but it is not affecting their decision to buy. Main concern in short term is all the doom and gloom in the press that may slow down consumer spending but overall it will probably have no effect.
The second dip looks as though people are thinking about things more, but it is not affecting their decision to buy. Main concern in short term is all the doom and gloom in the press that may slow down consumer spending but overall it will probably have no effect.
Have the board noticed a lack of talent available and what to do to address it ?
a. We bought other companies which addressed certain aspects
b. But we want to retain our uk identity.
c. We have even gone to schools - not universities - to get kids excited about careers in technology.
d. We support university programmed. Last year hired 70 graduates.
b. But we want to retain our uk identity.
c. We have even gone to schools - not universities - to get kids excited about careers in technology.
d. We support university programmed. Last year hired 70 graduates.
Dividend
The chestnut has come up - somewhere in the middle of a statement that has so far gone on for almost as long as HY spoke for.
Expect the usual response. Ah, there it is, as comforting as an old cardigan and a hug from your favourite grandparent.
Quote from HY - we are told by ..... - HY, they say, you have to scale with us on this roadmap, so we have to increase spend to keep pace, so the spare cash has to be re-invested, and we have to invest in our future.
Also included -
R & D spend - is it too high ? Answer. No it isn't. Slightly expanded to say that quite a bit of it was one off acquisition integration.
Expect the usual response. Ah, there it is, as comforting as an old cardigan and a hug from your favourite grandparent.
Quote from HY - we are told by ..... - HY, they say, you have to scale with us on this roadmap, so we have to increase spend to keep pace, so the spare cash has to be re-invested, and we have to invest in our future.
Also included -
R & D spend - is it too high ? Answer. No it isn't. Slightly expanded to say that quite a bit of it was one off acquisition integration.
Patents
First and foremost we use our patents to protect ourselves and our customers.
What our patents do is protect our customers from litigation from 3rd parties.
Where potential infringements are seen that are peripheral or marginal it's not worth chasing as you are seen as eager litigators. Where it is thought that Market share is being unfairly leveraged and gained by using our patents then we will protect them.
What our patents do is protect our customers from litigation from 3rd parties.
Where potential infringements are seen that are peripheral or marginal it's not worth chasing as you are seen as eager litigators. Where it is thought that Market share is being unfairly leveraged and gained by using our patents then we will protect them.
Can you expand on the relationships with our important customers ?
We have better relationships with our customers now than ever before. We even still have hopes for our up and down relationship with certain Korean customers.
And Dave takes the stage !
sporting his ear ring, tattoo AND a logo t-shirt.
What a guy :-)
Q & A sesh about to start - once we can get Dave off ha ha !!
What a guy :-)
Q & A sesh about to start - once we can get Dave off ha ha !!
Demand
Pipeline has NEVER been this strong. Past 18 months has been consistently increasing - now 15-20 sales people flying the world selling the business around then globe, contributing to influx of new unheard of licensees.
Integration of new businesses will be complete within 6 months.
Speaks very highly of Hellosoft guy - new IMG USA chief - Krishna and his exhaustive contacts.
PURE is really a pretty profitable business, it is just loaded with extra costs at the moment as investment in the new services and cloud apps are worked on.
Integration of new businesses will be complete within 6 months.
Speaks very highly of Hellosoft guy - new IMG USA chief - Krishna and his exhaustive contacts.
PURE is really a pretty profitable business, it is just loaded with extra costs at the moment as investment in the new services and cloud apps are worked on.
PURE
Still loves the biz, sees it as the key mover to cloud based services in addition to the growing worldwide markets.
Cloud strategy will involve monthly payments for certain services (something he spoke passionately about a couple of yrs ago, now getting v close to release).
New Spotify-like service coming.
And HY is leaving the lectern.
Boring number stuff about to come out from the new suspiciously tall CFO. It must be something in the public school water or something. Doesn't have the gravity of old TS, maybe it's just the relative lack of inches.
Cloud strategy will involve monthly payments for certain services (something he spoke passionately about a couple of yrs ago, now getting v close to release).
New Spotify-like service coming.
And HY is leaving the lectern.
Boring number stuff about to come out from the new suspiciously tall CFO. It must be something in the public school water or something. Doesn't have the gravity of old TS, maybe it's just the relative lack of inches.
Trends
Out of 250m sales, graphics = 200, video = 100, so lots have both.
Central to Apple, Android and Winphone platforms, biggest ecosystem, most efficient/powerful, excellent ongoing relationships.
OpenCL once again emphasised due to higher scalability of GPU's - GPGPU, image processing, analysis, physics, data analysis
Video and V.VOIP future. LTE within 5-10 years, all voice and video will be IP
Future is programmable communications, adding in RPU (radio processing unit) as component on SoC's - like CPU, GPU
Check out the flow slide, interesting stuff - cloud apps include security, healthcare, etc
Central to Apple, Android and Winphone platforms, biggest ecosystem, most efficient/powerful, excellent ongoing relationships.
OpenCL once again emphasised due to higher scalability of GPU's - GPGPU, image processing, analysis, physics, data analysis
Video and V.VOIP future. LTE within 5-10 years, all voice and video will be IP
Future is programmable communications, adding in RPU (radio processing unit) as component on SoC's - like CPU, GPU
Check out the flow slide, interesting stuff - cloud apps include security, healthcare, etc
Hellosoft and Caustic
Every device is a video player in the future - press your phone/tablet, video hits your screen. Current WiFi is not good enough, MIMO will allow this to happen and we have it now we have Hellosoft.
Caustic - Very strong patents in place, extremely complimentary, demos today will be prototypes running at a fraction of the speed (1/20) and is already same speed as current top end NVIDIA offerings.
Will be an add on to Rogue, not a replacement (20% hardware addition to give 'magic')
Using ray tracing massively reduces the cost to develop a new game (1/10 to 1/5 of the cost previously)
Follow Open RL and Brazil news to follow the progress.
Caustic - Very strong patents in place, extremely complimentary, demos today will be prototypes running at a fraction of the speed (1/20) and is already same speed as current top end NVIDIA offerings.
Will be an add on to Rogue, not a replacement (20% hardware addition to give 'magic')
Using ray tracing massively reduces the cost to develop a new game (1/10 to 1/5 of the cost previously)
Follow Open RL and Brazil news to follow the progress.
Targets
Hit 250m off 48 chips, 115 in the mix altogether so obvious where 1bn is coming from.
'I can't imagine we would have <50% Market share of mobile phone Market by 2014.
Proceeded to do some maths and take the p1ss out of analysts, hard not to love this guy !
'I can't imagine we would have <50% Market share of mobile phone Market by 2014.
Proceeded to do some maths and take the p1ss out of analysts, hard not to love this guy !
Licensee relationships
Significant, on-going extended relationships with 99% of customers.
Hellosoft opening doors to customers 'like Verizon' around the world. !!!
LG and ST switched graphics to us, Fujitsu stitched fro in-house to us - shows the best OS what is needed.
Next generation graphics demand is 'immense' - we are having to slow down to meet the demand, basically we are holding back demand.
However - Rogue is about ready, but 'don't expect Rogue product next year, think more like 2013'- bit of a disappointment that one.
80+ chips out at the moment
Hellosoft opening doors to customers 'like Verizon' around the world. !!!
LG and ST switched graphics to us, Fujitsu stitched fro in-house to us - shows the best OS what is needed.
Next generation graphics demand is 'immense' - we are having to slow down to meet the demand, basically we are holding back demand.
However - Rogue is about ready, but 'don't expect Rogue product next year, think more like 2013'- bit of a disappointment that one.
80+ chips out at the moment
Smartphone TAM
Sees 50% base line Market share of total smartphone Market once the upcoming battles for supremacy are settled.
'I cannot overempahsise the design wins we have in the home consumer market' - very confident in this area
Mobile computing - 'we are the reference design for MULTIPLE generations of android platforms' !!!!! That's news folks
Also sees tablet and smart tv synergies coming
'I cannot overempahsise the design wins we have in the home consumer market' - very confident in this area
Mobile computing - 'we are the reference design for MULTIPLE generations of android platforms' !!!!! That's news folks
Also sees tablet and smart tv synergies coming
Sees Intel as being a bigger and bigger player in the tablet arena
as well as STBs.
Interesting that he sees Intel as taking tablet Market share rather than other ARM players - and we're in there.
Interesting that he sees Intel as taking tablet Market share rather than other ARM players - and we're in there.
Product cycle
Down to 1 yr from 3 for video and graphics.
New IP families introduced every 4 yrs or so with annual spins
Also, some new IP is not announced until almost to Market - stops competitors seeing what is coming too early.
Usual 'we operate across all platform' comments - heard it before, but good to keep hammering it out and maybe analysts will finally listen.
HY sees Nokia becoming an impoant customer with new Mobile Windows products !!
New IP families introduced every 4 yrs or so with annual spins
Also, some new IP is not announced until almost to Market - stops competitors seeing what is coming too early.
Usual 'we operate across all platform' comments - heard it before, but good to keep hammering it out and maybe analysts will finally listen.
HY sees Nokia becoming an impoant customer with new Mobile Windows products !!
PURE
Will be adding cloud applications and products in future so moving away from radio only products
HY is up - "New emphasis
On the company being silicon, software AND CLOUD - adding the cloud in, helped by Hellosoft purchase for comms
AGM 17 is underway
amid the usual multimedia issues...
2 hrs of fun and games to come before the serious business of demo room and general carousing gets underway
2 hrs of fun and games to come before the serious business of demo room and general carousing gets underway
Riders and runners to the starting gate
...and we're about to begin !
Tony King-Smith has his traditional 'Antipodean' patterned tie on, so Board stability remains intact despite the imminent departure of Trevor 'Lofty' Selby
Tony King-Smith has his traditional 'Antipodean' patterned tie on, so Board stability remains intact despite the imminent departure of Trevor 'Lofty' Selby
Thursday 28 July 2011
TI Q2
TI showed continued momentum in it's wireless OMAP and connectivity segment as well as in the embedded division - all good for IMG.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/281666-texas-instruments-management-discusses-q2-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=qanda
Ron Slaymaker :Handsets, the part we're focused on being smartphones, continues to do well. I think we'll see where the year lands but at least coming at this point, something like 50% growth compared to last year, and we have a good position there with connectivity and with our own map and a position that is only getting stronger, especially on the OMAP front as we move forward
Kevin March :And then, we are pushing OMAP into other spaces, such as eReaders, GPS devices, things like that but those certainly probably would be a higher priority for us than chasing down the traditional, more mature PC market
Ron Slaymaker:
Uche, I think we feel really pretty optimistic about the outlook for
growth in OMAP. We are doing very well with a range of different customers and a range of different products. I think we've told you before that in the case of OMAP 3, we had something like 50, more than 50 actually, different OMAP 3-based handsets in the market, and that was a handset count I think at the end of 2010. And what I can say is with OMAP 4, our designing rate has been even higher, and in fact, higher than any prior OMAP generation. So there are few customers that we publicly talk about because they have publicly announced their products in the tablet space that would be RIM with PlayBook. In the smartphone space, the LG Optimus 3D product is OMAP 4 based. We've also launched OMAP 5 in February of this year. So again, we have a great pipeline of products and product technology. But even more importantly, we have a great pipeline of design wins in the smartphone and the tablet space. And then as I said previously, that we will watch them develop over time by areas like eReaders, GPS, personal
navigation systems, things like that, find OMAP to be just a great type of media process or application processor for their space as well. So we think it has a good growth outlook from
revenue standpoint and we're certainly investing accordingly.
Ron Slaymaker:
So we feel good about the diversity of that revenue and frankly, it's getting even more diverse, as we, especially in the OMAP space have a lot of new design wins that are basically in the pipeline of moving from development into production let's say over the course of the next year. So again, it's a more diverse customer base, but I can't break it out any finer for you than that
END
So it looks like TI are now in position to share the Android spoils with QCOM ,and to a lesser degree NVDA. Elsewhere in the Android world IMG have Mediatek, Samsung Hummingbird, Renesas and others for the huge 'white box' markets, also Intel via Medfield,Cloverview etc to come in 2012.
TI and Intel will also be well prepared for Windows 8 next year.
Everything's covered.
Now, back to Mt.Etna...
http://seekingalpha.com/article/281666-texas-instruments-management-discusses-q2-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript?part=qanda
Ron Slaymaker :Handsets, the part we're focused on being smartphones, continues to do well. I think we'll see where the year lands but at least coming at this point, something like 50% growth compared to last year, and we have a good position there with connectivity and with our own map and a position that is only getting stronger, especially on the OMAP front as we move forward
Kevin March :And then, we are pushing OMAP into other spaces, such as eReaders, GPS devices, things like that but those certainly probably would be a higher priority for us than chasing down the traditional, more mature PC market
Ron Slaymaker:
Uche, I think we feel really pretty optimistic about the outlook for
growth in OMAP. We are doing very well with a range of different customers and a range of different products. I think we've told you before that in the case of OMAP 3, we had something like 50, more than 50 actually, different OMAP 3-based handsets in the market, and that was a handset count I think at the end of 2010. And what I can say is with OMAP 4, our designing rate has been even higher, and in fact, higher than any prior OMAP generation. So there are few customers that we publicly talk about because they have publicly announced their products in the tablet space that would be RIM with PlayBook. In the smartphone space, the LG Optimus 3D product is OMAP 4 based. We've also launched OMAP 5 in February of this year. So again, we have a great pipeline of products and product technology. But even more importantly, we have a great pipeline of design wins in the smartphone and the tablet space. And then as I said previously, that we will watch them develop over time by areas like eReaders, GPS, personal
navigation systems, things like that, find OMAP to be just a great type of media process or application processor for their space as well. So we think it has a good growth outlook from
revenue standpoint and we're certainly investing accordingly.
Ron Slaymaker:
So we feel good about the diversity of that revenue and frankly, it's getting even more diverse, as we, especially in the OMAP space have a lot of new design wins that are basically in the pipeline of moving from development into production let's say over the course of the next year. So again, it's a more diverse customer base, but I can't break it out any finer for you than that
END
So it looks like TI are now in position to share the Android spoils with QCOM ,and to a lesser degree NVDA. Elsewhere in the Android world IMG have Mediatek, Samsung Hummingbird, Renesas and others for the huge 'white box' markets, also Intel via Medfield,Cloverview etc to come in 2012.
TI and Intel will also be well prepared for Windows 8 next year.
Everything's covered.
Now, back to Mt.Etna...
Wednesday 20 July 2011
Apple Q3
More record breaking results from apple last night.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/280344-apple-management-discusses-q3-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript
7.5M iPods with just over 50% being iPod Touch
20.3M iPhones
9.2M iPads
Massive growth in China but 'just scratching the surface right now' according to Oppenheimer
'product transition' due in Q4.
Over 33m iOS devices shifted in Q3, add to that some iPod Nano (at lower royalty) and we have something like 34-35m royalty volume for IMG, mostly at higher ASP from the A4/A5 chips (SGX+VXD/VXE).
Given likely developments in China and new products like iPhone 4GS/5 that volume is likely to be eclipsed in the next few quarters, giving IMG in the region of 150m+ royalty volume from Apple alone. The better analysts predict 330-370m total volume for IMG in FY 2011/12.
A great way to start FY2011/12 for IMG !
http://seekingalpha.com/article/280344-apple-management-discusses-q3-2011-results-earnings-call-transcript
7.5M iPods with just over 50% being iPod Touch
20.3M iPhones
9.2M iPads
Massive growth in China but 'just scratching the surface right now' according to Oppenheimer
'product transition' due in Q4.
Over 33m iOS devices shifted in Q3, add to that some iPod Nano (at lower royalty) and we have something like 34-35m royalty volume for IMG, mostly at higher ASP from the A4/A5 chips (SGX+VXD/VXE).
Given likely developments in China and new products like iPhone 4GS/5 that volume is likely to be eclipsed in the next few quarters, giving IMG in the region of 150m+ royalty volume from Apple alone. The better analysts predict 330-370m total volume for IMG in FY 2011/12.
A great way to start FY2011/12 for IMG !
Wednesday 22 June 2011
Killer results from Imagination - 1 billion chips here we come!
IMG released FY results this morning.
HY surprised many by announcing a new ambitious target of around 1 billion chips/year within 5 years. It was expected he would announce a 500m chip target, but obviously IMG are in a very confident mood.
ASP came out at 27c/chip (13% lower) with royalty volume up 94%(!) at 245m chips. Licensing was also very strong at £28.5m (up 24%). I think it's fair to say the only major semi target remaining for IMG is Qualcomm.
Well done HY et al.
Summary:
Adjusted pre-tax profit surges 80% to £24.0m; driven by 94% chip unit volume growth to 245m and licensing up 24% Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG, “Imagination”, “the Group”), a leading multimedia, communications and embedded processor technology company, today announces results for the 12 months to 30 April 2011.
Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG, “Imagination”, “the Group”), a leading multimedia, communications and embedded processor technology company, today announces results for the 12 months to 30 April 2011.
Financial highlights
Business highlights
END
HY surprised many by announcing a new ambitious target of around 1 billion chips/year within 5 years. It was expected he would announce a 500m chip target, but obviously IMG are in a very confident mood.
ASP came out at 27c/chip (13% lower) with royalty volume up 94%(!) at 245m chips. Licensing was also very strong at £28.5m (up 24%). I think it's fair to say the only major semi target remaining for IMG is Qualcomm.
Well done HY et al.
Summary:
Adjusted pre-tax profit surges 80% to £24.0m; driven by 94% chip unit volume growth to 245m and licensing up 24% Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG, “Imagination”, “the Group”), a leading multimedia, communications and embedded processor technology company, today announces results for the 12 months to 30 April 2011.
Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG, “Imagination”, “the Group”), a leading multimedia, communications and embedded processor technology company, today announces results for the 12 months to 30 April 2011.
Financial highlights
- Group revenue up 21% to £98.0m (2010: £80.9m)
- Technology revenues increased 47% to £69.8m (2010: £47.3m)
- Royalty revenue up 69%; very strong momentum
- Licensing revenue up 24%; reflects high activity level
- PURE revenues £28.2m (2010: £33.6m)
- Technology - adjusted operating profit* up 97% to £26.7m (2010: £13.6m)
- Adjusted Group pre-tax profit* up 80% to £24.0m (2010: £13.3m)
- Group pre-tax profit £16.4m (2010: £10.2m)
- Adjusted earnings per share* up 48% to 10.8p (2010: 7.3p)
- Reported earnings per share 7.7p (2010: 6.0p)
- Strong cash generation from operations of £19.1m (2010: £8.6m), cash balance increased to £49.4m at 30 April 2011 (2010: £29.4m)
Business highlights
Technology business
Royalties and design wins- Partner chips shipped almost doubled to 245m units (2010: 126m) – new target of 1 billion units per annum in five years
- Significant volume shipments in mobile phone, TV/STB, personal computing/tablets, digital radio & automotive markets
- 115 active partner chip designs (2010: 91); 48 in production (2010: 37)
- Strong licensing activities
- Addition of several new key partners including ST-Ericsson, ST Microelectronics, Fujitsu, LG, NetLogic & SiS
- Many new and extended agreements with existing partners
- 20+ important agreements involving 35+ silicon IP cores
- Across all markets - mobile phone, digital TV/STB (set top boxes)/thin-clients, Personal Media Player (PMP), mobile computing/tablets/netbooks and in-car navigation/dashboard
- For graphics, video, broadcast/connectivity and processor silicon IP cores and HelloSoft VoIP technologies
- First tier-one licensee for ENSIGMA UCC technology
- Significantly increased and active pipeline of prospects across all IP families
- Two strategic acquisitions completed in the second half of the year in connectivity/V.VoIP and graphics areas to contribute to Group’s next phase of development
PURE business
- Tight economic environment and cautious retailers particularly impacted UK revenues
- Good revenue increase from new & growing international markets with a 75% year on year increase for the second half
- Continued strategic development and path finding role
- Focus on digital broadcast, connected devices and Cloud solutions
- Expect improvement in 2011/12 driven by the growing export business and new products
- DAB+ roll-out in Germany set for 1 August 2011
- Cloud offering strengthening with time and driving connected product adoption
"The almost doubling of the annual unit shipment of devices using our technologies, and strong licensing activities, have again resulted in a substantial jump in full-year revenues and profits.
"Our technologies, instrumental in many of the key market trends, continue to gain ground and are powering many market-driving and iconic end-user products.
"With well over 500m devices across numerous categories having shipped to date, approximately half of this volume during the last financial year alone, we now see a revised target of around one billion units for the annual run-rate for our partners’ chips as a reasonable goal within five years.
"Despite the current slow-down in consumer spending PURE continues effectively to showcase and drive key technologies. We expect to see an improvement in this division over the medium term, particularly in international markets.
"Whilst acknowledging the on-going challenges to the global economy, we are increasingly confident of our continued good progress in the current financial year and beyond given the very active, growing pipeline of licensing prospects, the growth in design wins and the momentum in our chip volume, together with PURE’s leading position and product portfolio."
Click here to view the full financial resultsEND
Thursday 16 June 2011
Imagination update on Rogue
IMG today officially announced that 6 lead partners had licensed 'Rogue'.
Three are in the public domain: ST-Ericsson, TI and Mediatek, with 3 more 'yet to be announced' ie. it will be at a time of their (the partners) choosing - obviously 2 are Apple and Intel but the 3rd is anyone's guess - most reckon it will be Renesas (given the long history and early adoption) but other possibles are Sony (PS4 anyone ?) Samsung (you never know) and LG imo.
Also today Comcast announced they will be using Intel Atom CE SoC (? Sodaville) for their nex-gen Xfinity TV Experience, a very significant win for Intel (and almost certainly IMG).
http://www.cmcsk.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=584505
PR:
Imagination Technologies, a leading multimedia and communications technologies company, announces that its next generation POWERVR Series6 architecture, codenamed ‘Rogue’, has now being licensed by six lead partners.
The POWERVR Series6 GPU family, which delivers unrivalled GFLOPS per mm2 and per mW for all APIs, delivers not only a clear technology advantage and exceptional roadmap, driven by one of the largest teams of graphics engineers in the world, but also an extensive ecosystem of third party developers which has created hundreds of thousands of apps optimised for POWERVR enabled devices to date.
Imagination CEO Hossein Yassaie says: “The growing commitment of the primary players to our roadmap shows that, having evaluated the options, the overall mobile and embedded market is increasingly committing to POWERVR as the de facto graphics standard.”
Among the announced POWERVR Series6 partners are:
Three are in the public domain: ST-Ericsson, TI and Mediatek, with 3 more 'yet to be announced' ie. it will be at a time of their (the partners) choosing - obviously 2 are Apple and Intel but the 3rd is anyone's guess - most reckon it will be Renesas (given the long history and early adoption) but other possibles are Sony (PS4 anyone ?) Samsung (you never know) and LG imo.
Also today Comcast announced they will be using Intel Atom CE SoC (? Sodaville) for their nex-gen Xfinity TV Experience, a very significant win for Intel (and almost certainly IMG).
http://www.cmcsk.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=584505
PR:
Imagination Technologies, a leading multimedia and communications technologies company, announces that its next generation POWERVR Series6 architecture, codenamed ‘Rogue’, has now being licensed by six lead partners.
The POWERVR Series6 GPU family, which delivers unrivalled GFLOPS per mm2 and per mW for all APIs, delivers not only a clear technology advantage and exceptional roadmap, driven by one of the largest teams of graphics engineers in the world, but also an extensive ecosystem of third party developers which has created hundreds of thousands of apps optimised for POWERVR enabled devices to date.
Imagination CEO Hossein Yassaie says: “The growing commitment of the primary players to our roadmap shows that, having evaluated the options, the overall mobile and embedded market is increasingly committing to POWERVR as the de facto graphics standard.”
Among the announced POWERVR Series6 partners are:
· ST-Ericsson, which has announced that its new Nova™ family of smartphone application processors will include Imagination’s next-generation POWERVR Series6 architecture
· Texas Instruments, which will deploy POWERVR Series6 technology in future OMAP™ platform-based SoC designs. These SoC devices will target the highly-significant smartphone market, as well as the fast-emerging mobile computing and tablet markets supporting key operating systems, including Android and the next version of Windows
· MediaTek, which has licensed POWERVR Series6 technology
· Three other POWERVR Series6 licensees are yet to be announced
POWERVR has established itself as the industry leader for mobile and embedded graphics acceleration across smartphones, tablets, mobile computing and games consoles, attracting an extensive community of POWERVR developers and powering iconic and much-loved products.
POWERVR Series6 GPUs will be fully compatible with Series5 and Series5XT POWERVR SGX GPUs, ensuring a smooth migration path for developers upgrading applications optimized for Series5 to the new architecture.
END
Tuesday 7 June 2011
PS Vita graphics lauded
PS Vita finally officially launched yesterday at E3. Lots of 'hands-on' impressions already, gamers seem mightily impressed by the graphics (SGX 543MP4+) - pretty much the best portable graphics around for now at least.
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/40376/sony-ps-vita-hands-on-impressions :
'There was plenty of jumping around a chance to look at the stunning graphics. It’s not PS3 class just yet, but Sony has done a fantastic job in giving it enough umph so developers can create something very pretty indeed. Think Dreamcast or first Xbox and you’re on the right lines'
'(Virtua Tennis 4) The graphics are what will make this game stand out though - stunning'
'Ultimately though the biggest loser here isn't the PS Vita, but the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, that frankly looks rather pathetic against this new monster from Sony.'
http://gizmodo.com/5809242/the-next-psp-is-officially-the-playstation-vita
'Are they PS3-quality? Not quite. But. But, it's safe to say they're reasonable attempts at such a standard and totally the best-looking portable games ever. The claims of their amazingness and how they touch your eyeballs in special ways are not hyperbole, for the most part. It's easily a generation or two ahead of anything on iOS, and like half a gen or so ahead of most of the 3DS stuff I've played.'
http://www.gaming-age.com/news/2011/6/7-31
'When all is said and done I have to say I'm impressed with the technology built into the Vita. It's definitely a step up from the 3DS graphically, and the second analog stick is a great feature.'
A great demonstration (together with iPad 2) of why IMG are the leaders in cutting-edge portable/mobile graphics.
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/40376/sony-ps-vita-hands-on-impressions :
'There was plenty of jumping around a chance to look at the stunning graphics. It’s not PS3 class just yet, but Sony has done a fantastic job in giving it enough umph so developers can create something very pretty indeed. Think Dreamcast or first Xbox and you’re on the right lines'
'(Virtua Tennis 4) The graphics are what will make this game stand out though - stunning'
'Ultimately though the biggest loser here isn't the PS Vita, but the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, that frankly looks rather pathetic against this new monster from Sony.'
http://gizmodo.com/5809242/the-next-psp-is-officially-the-playstation-vita
'Are they PS3-quality? Not quite. But. But, it's safe to say they're reasonable attempts at such a standard and totally the best-looking portable games ever. The claims of their amazingness and how they touch your eyeballs in special ways are not hyperbole, for the most part. It's easily a generation or two ahead of anything on iOS, and like half a gen or so ahead of most of the 3DS stuff I've played.'
http://www.gaming-age.com/news/2011/6/7-31
'When all is said and done I have to say I'm impressed with the technology built into the Vita. It's definitely a step up from the 3DS graphically, and the second analog stick is a great feature.'
A great demonstration (together with iPad 2) of why IMG are the leaders in cutting-edge portable/mobile graphics.
Thursday 2 June 2011
New OMAP 4 SoC
TI at Computex have announced a 'top of the range' OMAP 4 SoC, the OMAP 4470, featuring SGX 544 (single core) instead of the SGX 540 used in the other OMAP 4 SoCs:
There is further commentary on it over at the excellent Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4413/ti-announces-omap-4470-and-specs-powervr-sgx544-18-ghz-dual-core-cortexa9
TAIPEI, Taiwan, June 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- COMPUTEX -- Building on the OMAP™ 4 platform family's technological achievements , Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) introduced today the power-efficient OMAP4470 applications processor, designed to deliver the perfect balance between processing power, graphics, display subsystem functionality and multilayered user interface (UI) composition. The multicore OMAP4470 processor surpasses current market solutions with clock speeds up to 1.8 GHz, an 80 percent increase in Web browsing performance, increased memory bandwidth, a 2.5x boost in graphics functionality—via the POWERVR™ SGX544 core from Imagination Technologies—and a unique hardware composition engine. Mobile computing and gaming applications running on operating systems such as Android, Linux and the next version of Microsoft Windows will benefit from the OMAP4470 processor's enhanced capabilities. Customers designing ultrathin laptops, tablets or smartphones around previously released OMAP 4 processors gain the added benefit of pin-to-pin hardware and software compatibility for maximum re-use and faster time-to-market.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110602/LA12487)
"Superior mobile computing relies on a user experience that dwarfs all others. Fast and crisp Web browsing, HD and liquid UIs, support for the latest applications—these are the elements consumers judge and buy their devices on. The OMAP4470 processor delivers the maximum experience possible with an unmatched, power-efficient architecture," said Remi El-Ouazzane, vice president, OMAP platform business unit, TI.
Making HD UIs a reality
Courtesy of its advanced graphics architecture, OMAP4470 enables customers to leverage tomorrow's leading-edge display technology by supporting resolution up to QXGA (2048x1536). The new applications processor drives still more unparalleled HD UIs with simultaneous support for up to three HD screens and up to 2x more layered imaging and video composition than competitive solutions—a capability required by the sophisticated UIs of next generation operating systems. This feature is enabled by the combination of a hardware composition engine with a dedicated 2D graphics core, a highly sophisticated display subsystem, and dual-channel LPDDR2 memory enabling up to 7.5 GB/s of throughput to composite the graphics and/or video data output. This frees the GPU to perform graphics-intensive tasks such as gaming or widget creation while the compositing process is assigned to more power-efficient hardware subsystems.
Powerful enough for desktop applications yet highly power-efficient for mobile applications, Imagination Technologies' POWERVR SGX544 GPU complements the OMAP 4 platform's promise of high performance, low power. The OMAP4470 processor is the first OMAP offering to leverage the POWERVR SGX544. Combining the SGX544's features with the sophisticated OMAP architecture enables TI customers to deliver a new set of applications to end-users, including DirectX-driven games and videos.
"Graphics processing is now at the very heart of the mobile computing experience, providing the gateway to an enriched experience of user interface, gaming, location services, web and media," said Hossein Yassaie, CEO, Imagination Technologies. "Combining the OMAP 4 platform's low-power, high-performance architecture with the extensive acceleration capabilities and API support of Imagination's POWERVR SGX544 will enable experiences that will really make people sit up and take notice."
OMAP4470 applications processor features and benefits*
*Comparative data relative to the OMAP4430 processor
Availability
The 45nm OMAP4470 processor is expected to sample in the second half of 2011, with devices expected to hit the market in first half 2012. These products are intended for high-volume mobile OEMs and ODMs, and are not available through distributors.
There is further commentary on it over at the excellent Anandtech: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4413/ti-announces-omap-4470-and-specs-powervr-sgx544-18-ghz-dual-core-cortexa9
TAIPEI, Taiwan, June 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- COMPUTEX -- Building on the OMAP™ 4 platform family's technological achievements , Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) (NYSE: TXN) introduced today the power-efficient OMAP4470 applications processor, designed to deliver the perfect balance between processing power, graphics, display subsystem functionality and multilayered user interface (UI) composition. The multicore OMAP4470 processor surpasses current market solutions with clock speeds up to 1.8 GHz, an 80 percent increase in Web browsing performance, increased memory bandwidth, a 2.5x boost in graphics functionality—via the POWERVR™ SGX544 core from Imagination Technologies—and a unique hardware composition engine. Mobile computing and gaming applications running on operating systems such as Android, Linux and the next version of Microsoft Windows will benefit from the OMAP4470 processor's enhanced capabilities. Customers designing ultrathin laptops, tablets or smartphones around previously released OMAP 4 processors gain the added benefit of pin-to-pin hardware and software compatibility for maximum re-use and faster time-to-market.
(Photo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110602/LA12487)
"Superior mobile computing relies on a user experience that dwarfs all others. Fast and crisp Web browsing, HD and liquid UIs, support for the latest applications—these are the elements consumers judge and buy their devices on. The OMAP4470 processor delivers the maximum experience possible with an unmatched, power-efficient architecture," said Remi El-Ouazzane, vice president, OMAP platform business unit, TI.
Making HD UIs a reality
Courtesy of its advanced graphics architecture, OMAP4470 enables customers to leverage tomorrow's leading-edge display technology by supporting resolution up to QXGA (2048x1536). The new applications processor drives still more unparalleled HD UIs with simultaneous support for up to three HD screens and up to 2x more layered imaging and video composition than competitive solutions—a capability required by the sophisticated UIs of next generation operating systems. This feature is enabled by the combination of a hardware composition engine with a dedicated 2D graphics core, a highly sophisticated display subsystem, and dual-channel LPDDR2 memory enabling up to 7.5 GB/s of throughput to composite the graphics and/or video data output. This frees the GPU to perform graphics-intensive tasks such as gaming or widget creation while the compositing process is assigned to more power-efficient hardware subsystems.
Powerful enough for desktop applications yet highly power-efficient for mobile applications, Imagination Technologies' POWERVR SGX544 GPU complements the OMAP 4 platform's promise of high performance, low power. The OMAP4470 processor is the first OMAP offering to leverage the POWERVR SGX544. Combining the SGX544's features with the sophisticated OMAP architecture enables TI customers to deliver a new set of applications to end-users, including DirectX-driven games and videos.
"Graphics processing is now at the very heart of the mobile computing experience, providing the gateway to an enriched experience of user interface, gaming, location services, web and media," said Hossein Yassaie, CEO, Imagination Technologies. "Combining the OMAP 4 platform's low-power, high-performance architecture with the extensive acceleration capabilities and API support of Imagination's POWERVR SGX544 will enable experiences that will really make people sit up and take notice."
OMAP4470 applications processor features and benefits*
Feature | Benefit | |
Two ARM® Cortex™-A9 MPCores™ running up to 1.8GHz per core | 80% increase in Web browsing performance | |
Two ARM Cortex-M3 cores | Smart multicore processing optimized for low-power and real-time responsiveness | |
SGX544 graphics core | 2.5x overall graphics performance increase; support for DirectX, OpenGL ES 2.0, OpenVG 1.1, and OpenCL 1.1 | |
Hardware composition engine with dedicated 2D graphics core | Frees GPU to manage intensive tasks; maximizes power-efficiency | |
Display subsystem | Supports as many as three HD displays and up to QXGA (2048x1536) resolution; HDMI supporting stereoscopic 3D | |
Dual-channel, 466 MHz LPDDR2 memory | Higher memory bandwidth enables rendering and compositing of multilayer content at high resolutions | |
Complete pin-to-pin hardware and software compatibility | Rapid transition and maximum re-use of investment from OMAP4430 and OMAP4460 processors | |
Availability
The 45nm OMAP4470 processor is expected to sample in the second half of 2011, with devices expected to hit the market in first half 2012. These products are intended for high-volume mobile OEMs and ODMs, and are not available through distributors.
Thursday 19 May 2011
TI going Rogue !
Fantastic announcement today from IMG:
Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG; "Imagination"), a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property ("SoC IP"), has signed multi-use license agreements with Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) for new Imagination Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) IP cores from both the latest POWERVR Series5XT family and the next generation POWERVR Series6 family, codenamed 'Rogue'.
TI will deploy both POWERVR Series5XT and 'Rogue' technology, which are ideal for various multi-core configurations, in future OMAP™ platform-based SoC designs. These SoC devices will target the highly-significant smartphone market, as well as the fast-emerging mobile computing and tablet markets supporting key operating systems, including Android and Windows on ARM.
The new agreements are the latest milestone in a collaborative relationship that spans five generations of the OMAP platform and enables the broad, growing ecosystem of developers supporting POWERVR and OMAP technology with advanced graphics applications. This ecosystem will continue to move forward as a result of this extended relationship, taking advantage of new levels of performance and new features such as OpenCL GP-GPU computing.
Remi El-Ouazzane, Vice President and General Manager, OMAP Platform Business Unit, TI says:
"The complex, multimedia-rich mobile computing environment calls for a sophisticated yet low-power processing architecture that balances every nuance from high performance to intense graphic capabilities. TI is pleased to once again deploy Imagination's market-leading POWERVR cores into the next generation of OMAP platforms which will be a key driving force in shaping such future applications like augmented reality, OpenCL and, of course, gaming in mobile phone and mobile computing spaces."
Hossein Yassaie, CEO, Imagination says:
"We are delighted that our well-established relationship will continue into the new generations of POWERVR and OMAP. This will make five generations during which the combined efforts of Imagination and TI are the cornerstone of innovation in mobile and embedded graphics.
"These agreements will help Imagination continue to deliver, across several key markets, outstanding POWERVR graphics technologies to device manufacturers, developers and consumers for years to come."
Under the terms of its licensing arrangements Imagination receives licence fees and royalty revenues on shipment of chips incorporating Imagination's IP.
END
TI management have said many times they are a 'technology-led' company, meaning they go for the best in class graphics (PowerVR), best ecosystem and engineering support. The results are that OMAP continues to do great business , fighting off newcomers like Nvidia (in the shape of Tegra) as well as remaining pretty much the only stand-alone application processor supplier (others have all gone the integrated apps/baseband route).
Various analysts had spread the rumour of ARM Mali winning over TI in the past year - so much for that.
Well done all at IMG.
(Do the right thing Qualcomm, you know it makes sense !)
Monday 16 May 2011
New agreement with Renesas
Another day of good news for IMG. Long-time partner and global semiconductor giant Renesas has taken a multi-use agreement for more SGX-5XT cores. They already use the SGX 543MP2 in the AG5 chip (for DoCoMo handsets H2 this year). It is also suspected that they are a 'Rogue' partner.
Renesas Electronics licenses further high-performance graphics processor cores from Imagination Technologies
Imagination Technologies Group plc (LSE: IMG; "Imagination"), a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property ("SoC IP"), has signed further multi-use licence and extension agreements with Renesas Electronics Corporation (TSX: 6723), a premiere supplier of advanced semiconductors, for graphics technologies from Imagination's POWERVR SGX Series5XT IP core family.
Renesas Electronics will deploy these technologies in future system-on-chip (SoC) designs for the mobile, consumer and automotive markets.
Under the terms of its licensing arrangements Imagination receives license fees and royalty revenues on shipment of SoCs incorporating Imagination's IP.
Thursday 12 May 2011
Strategic License deal with Fujitsu
More great news today - 3 in a row!
Further to the license deal (no details) with Fujitsu announced at the interims , IMG today announced a 'strategic license' deal:
Fujitsu Licenses Imagination Graphics and Multimedia IP Cores
Fujitsu Semiconductor Europe will be one of the first groups to take advantage of the extended partnership in products targeting the automotive sector
Imagination Technologies Group plc - a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property (SoC IP") - has signed a strategic license agreement with Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited for Imagination's POWERVR SGX graphics and POWERVR video technologies.
The agreement provides Fujitsu with access to a range of Imagination's technologies targeting the consumer and embedded electronics space. Fujitsu Semiconductor Europe will be one of the first groups to take advantage of the extended partnership in products targeting the automotive market.
Tony King-Smith, VP marketing, Imagination says: "We are delighted that our relationship with Fujitsu has extended in terms of using additional IP cores and targeting new markets. This new agreement will help Imagination and Fujitsu to deliver outstanding POWERVR graphics technologies that will enable innovation initially in the car market and followed by other markets in the future."
Markus Mierse, Director Graphic Competence Center, Fujitsu Semiconductor Europe, says: "Using POWERVR, Fujitsu will deliver the pinnacle of performance and efficiency for in-car systems, meeting the challenges of navigation, user interface, dashboard display and entertainment. We will deliver both superior graphics capabilities and low power consumption to developers of graphically-rich automotive devices and sophisticated applications."
END
'Strategic' license deals usually imply multi-year, multiple IP and a greater level of commitment. They are also worth more in terms of license fees of course.
Further to the license deal (no details) with Fujitsu announced at the interims , IMG today announced a 'strategic license' deal:
Fujitsu Licenses Imagination Graphics and Multimedia IP Cores
Fujitsu Semiconductor Europe will be one of the first groups to take advantage of the extended partnership in products targeting the automotive sector
Imagination Technologies Group plc - a leader in System-on-Chip Intellectual Property (SoC IP") - has signed a strategic license agreement with Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited for Imagination's POWERVR SGX graphics and POWERVR video technologies.
The agreement provides Fujitsu with access to a range of Imagination's technologies targeting the consumer and embedded electronics space. Fujitsu Semiconductor Europe will be one of the first groups to take advantage of the extended partnership in products targeting the automotive market.
Tony King-Smith, VP marketing, Imagination says: "We are delighted that our relationship with Fujitsu has extended in terms of using additional IP cores and targeting new markets. This new agreement will help Imagination and Fujitsu to deliver outstanding POWERVR graphics technologies that will enable innovation initially in the car market and followed by other markets in the future."
Markus Mierse, Director Graphic Competence Center, Fujitsu Semiconductor Europe, says: "Using POWERVR, Fujitsu will deliver the pinnacle of performance and efficiency for in-car systems, meeting the challenges of navigation, user interface, dashboard display and entertainment. We will deliver both superior graphics capabilities and low power consumption to developers of graphically-rich automotive devices and sophisticated applications."
END
'Strategic' license deals usually imply multi-year, multiple IP and a greater level of commitment. They are also worth more in terms of license fees of course.
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