Nvidia, one of the world’s leading graphics providers, has announced that it will start licensing its GPU technology for other SoC manufacturers, starting with the Kepler series of GPUs. This move comes at a time when most smartphone manufacturers have moved away from Nvidia’s Tegra SoC, which was supposed to provide the much needed boost to the company’s flailing mobile portfolio. Nvidia Tegra, while good at games, lacked in raw performance and most importantly, battery life. Tegra chips were Nvidia’s SoC play at the mobile market, and now, like their core PC business, the Kepler based GPUs will be licensed to willing manufacturers.
Imagination technologies, the leading graphics provider for smartphones, has been in the same business for a long time, and its business model is exactly what Nvidia are aiming to take advantage of. The PowerVR graphics from Imagination technologies, which are licensed to several companies, even power Intel based SoCs like Clovefield and Medfield. With Qualcomm using its own Adreno solution, and ARM licensing its own Mali graphics, the market is stuffed with competition that Nvidia wants to be a part of. While this might be a risky move, it is so much better than Nvidia making its own chips, which need more than just application processing to move into burgeoning LTE markets.
The licensing will enable manufacturers to either use the graphics chips provided by Nvidia or use its design to make their own graphics solution, all covered under Nvidia’s patent portfolio. A big move for the company, but we still haven’t heard anything about adoption yet. Look forward to it, possibly next year.
Source Nvidia Blogs