ATI and AMD are planning to join forces

[ubuntu_demon]

from http://www.amd.com/us-en/0,,3715_141...l?redir=goBG01 :

On July 24, 2006, AMD and ATI announced a plan to join forces, in a transaction that will combine AMD’s technology leadership in microprocessors with ATI’s strengths in graphics, chipsets and consumer electronics. The result is a processing powerhouse: a new competitor, better equipped to drive growth, innovation and choice for its customers in commercial and mobile computing segments and in rapidly-growing consumer electronics segments. The transaction, valued at US $5.4 billion, is expected to close in Q4 2006 subject to approval by ATI shareholders, court approval, regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions.

Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California with centers of excellence around the world, the new company will have a combined workforce of approximately 14,900 employees. This transaction breaks new ground for both companies and is expected to provide increased customer benefits in four key technology areas.

I added this on my blog right here :
http://ubuntudemon.wordpress.com/200...ng-powerhouse/

Here's the topic on the digg :
http://digg.com/tech_news/AMD_ATI_A_...ing_Powerhouse

update :
I hope this acquisition will mean that ATI’s and NVIDIA’s video drivers will be open sourced eventually. Although I don’t think this will happen very quickly.

I posted another blog entry on this topic :

AMD’s ATI acquisition may help Linux
http://ubuntudemon.wordpress.com/200...ay-help-linux/

[KingBahamut]

Well what I will say is, I believe this may help their Open Source Driver woes, or at least I hope it does.

Have to wait and see.

[Jucato]

I don't know what this merger would eventually mean, specially for Linux, but I would have probably preferred an AMD-NVIDIA merger.

[bruce89]

I suppose they are both number 2 in the respective market. AMD is Linux friendly, wheras ATI isn't. It will be intresting where they go in regards to Linux friendlinesfriendlinesss.

[Jucato]

Yeah, I've always thought that AMD is more Linux-friendly than Intel, and NVIDIA is more Linux-friendly than ATI. But I really can't compare, as I've been an NVIDIA user as long as I can remember.

[mips]

Well what I will say is, I believe this may help their Open Source Driver woes, or at least I hope it does.

Have to wait and see.

I really hope it does.

[mips]

I don't know what this merger would eventually mean, specially for Linux, but I would have probably preferred an AMD-NVIDIA merger.

Have to agree with that. I just hope this does not mean an end to nForce chipset motherboards where AMD CPUs are used...

[bruce89]

I really hope it does.

I also do.

Yeah, I've always thought that AMD is more Linux-friendly than Intel, and NVIDIA is more Linux-friendly than ATI. But I really can't compare, as I've been an NVIDIA user as long as I can remember.

nVidia is slightly more friendly than ATI, but still hopeless, at least their drivers work well. They both only produce binary drivers, and I am not convinced about their "trade secrets" excuse.

Funny thing is that Intel sponsors The GNOME Foundation (http://foundation.gnome.org/), wheras AMD don't. I assume this is because they are the ones with the money. Intel also provide lots of drivers for their products (Integrated graphics, Wi-Fi etc.). AMD don't do these products (yet), so they don't need to produce drivers (obviously). The question is, if A{MD/TI} were to do these products, would they produce drivers and documentation for them?

[zenwhen]

One can only hope that this move will ensure that Nvidia continues on their path of creating top notch chipsets for Intel's platforms. Intel needs competition in that area to push them to squeeze more power out of their own chipsets.

With Intel releasing Conroe, and AMD's sales down... competition is going to be crazy for the next couple years. Prices will be low, performance will be high, and every possible advantage will be thought of. This includes support for open source platforms.

This is good for us, good for the industry, and good for both Intel and AMD.

[newbie2]

Intel also provide lots of drivers for their products (Integrated graphics, Wi-Fi etc.). AMD don't do these products (yet), so they don't need to produce drivers (obviously). The question is, if A{MD/TI} were to do these products, would they produce drivers and documentation for them?

here is an interesting read about that -->

Today's PC is far more multimedia oriented. High Definition graphics is "just coming" in television; it's actually exceeded by what top end PC graphics systems can manage - that's why a high-res flat screen for the PC is twice the price of the same size screen for TV and video. In the future, actual software will need to be written to switch, seamlessly and in real time, between the background business applications, and the graphics and video work done in the foreground - and the business applications may want to take direct advantage of the GPU.

And the GPU isn't just for drawing pictures. Talk to any crypto expert and you'll find they are all trying to find ways of harnessing that extraordinary power. To quote Wikipedia: "Recent developments in GPUs include support for programmable shaders which can manipulate vertices and textures with many of the same operations supported by CPUs, oversampling and interpolation techniques to reduce aliasing, and very high-precision colour spaces. Because most of these computations involve matrix and vector operations, engineers and scientists have increasingly studied the use of GPUs for non-graphical calculations."

And: "Because all these applications exceed an actual GPU's usage target, a new term, GPGPU is usually employed to describe them. While GPGPUs are the same chips as GPUs, there is increased pressure on manufacturers from "GPGPU users" to improve hardware design, usually focusing on adding more flexibility to the programming model."

The black hole of the processor has, at last, started to attract the GPU and the GPGPU. AMD feels that it has to move, now, before it becomes part of Intel, rather than part of a generic processor platform.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/07/24/amd_etc/