ATI ditches TV division
Xilleon a gonner
ONE OF THE LESSER mentioned aspects of AMD's disastrous last quarter has been the fact that AMD is completely dumping its TV and consumer chip business, which it acquired as part of ATI.
The company was widely reported last week to have lost $1.2 billion last quarter, but most have overlooked the fact that it's the complete abolition of the handheld and digital TV business that accounts for most of the loss: that aspect of ATI was valued at $876m when the company was acquired, and is now worth precisely diddly squat.
Just a year ago, the consumer and TV business was considered a growing - and crucial - part of ATI's chip portfolio. In fact, there were a good few quarters where the entire company was sustained just on the revenue from this division, particularly when desktop graphics sales were slow.
Its abolition, then, is a massive blow to those who worked at DAAMIT to create a series of entirely decent chips. Indeed, the Xilleon, which was much touted by ATI as the product with the most potential for mainstream appeal, is now destined to spend the rest of its time in a nursing home in Toronto, remembering the good old days.
As recently as CES this year AMD was touting design wins for the chip, with Divx signing up to use its codec on set-top boxes and Samsung using the Xilleon in its own TVs. Said Dave Di Orio, GM for the digital TV division, "We are committed to delivering a true multimedia experience with AMD Xilleon processors." And by committed, obviously, he means "about to slash".
It also marks a new direction for AMD, which now appears to be eschewing anything outside of its core competencies in order to focus engineering talent where it needs it. We've heard almost nothing about AMD products like AMD Live, or Geode - or, in fact, anything other than Fusion and desktop graphics for the past couple of quarters.
Whereas Intel and Nvidia appear to be spreading their wings with new types of chips and products for handhelds, subnotebooks, mobile phones and TVs, AMD appears to be narrowing its competencies in a bid to actually display some competency in any of them.
So bid a fond farewell to ATI's TV business - we hardly knew thee... µ
Comments
NOOOOOO
nooooooooooooooooAMD Handheld
I used to work for the ATI Handheld group. Despite the name, the group mostly made chips for mobile phones (rather than PDAs). I'm disappointed their closing the group down -- a lot of good people did a lot of great work there. The Imageon chip first controlled the phone LCD panel, then the next one had 2D graphics acceleration, and the next added JPEG encoding/decoding on the chip, followed by camera control, and so on. By the time I left, the "display" chip controlled the camera, had 3D acceleration, had audio/video codecs running on internal DSPs, controlled the SD cards, and a huge amount of other stuff all done with a slow as Hell clock and minuscule power draw. The chip did everything on the phone except the "phoning" part :).When I left a few years ago the group was still hugely profitable, with profit growing every quarter, so it's sad to see the token "new-CEO-so-I-have-to-announce-my-presence" move to be to axe the whole division.
Yeah this stinks...
ATI will be missed by me in this aspect. ATI was known for quality TV picture, where nvidia was fast but sloppy with their TV color and Intel is just an unknown.And with nvidia struggling right now the prospects of looking to Intel for this type of gear does not inspire confidence.
Xilleon, maybe go it alone? Seems to be working for DVICO. Give it a go!
Blaming TV Probably Isn't Reason.
theINQ has carried story about AMD & Nvidia being on short end of legal trouble. Clincher came to Court just few days ago in form of E-Mail from AMD To Nvidia offerring to conspire together over LOW Stock prices of two. Whomp, Out Goes Ruiz.AMD is Clearly in Serious trouble. When Central European company combines with English company, Usually entire Business Collaspes. English would Eat their Own & Central Euro would Attack well before anyone crossed border. Its Hard To Cooperate in English system.
Blame Game May Have Taken Hold, while real blame is in structure, NOT Product. Every Bit AMD Lets Go Of, Is Gone. Ultie Correction Prediction at $2.50 tends to See Bankruptcy as Natural Order Of Things. Shurely Many Will Lose Their Knickers.As Soiled As They Be.
Where Have ALL Soldiers Gone? Long Time Passing. Ka-Bam, Head On Collision.
drashek
Why not sell?
Wow, there were great products coming out of this group. Did they even try to find a buyer for this division?sad to see
What a shame to see a company like AMD going down the tubes, i suppose I should stop waiting for a new socket and cpu from AMD and just get a 4870 before they stop making them also.Figures
Figures that a copycat company can copy a Processor and succeed, but they buy one of the best graphics card companies and they end up ruining that company's name.