AMD sells handheld graphics unit to Qualcomm for $65M
By Nilay Patel 
posted Jan 20th 2009 5:03PM
posted Jan 20th 2009 5:03PM
AMD's been looking to sell off its handheld graphics business since July, and it looks like it's finally found a buyer in Qualcomm. The $65M deal announced today is already approved, and Qualcomm is planning on hiring key design and development people from AMD -- some nice news amid the most recent round of layoffs at the struggling chipmaker. We'll see if this cash infusion helps AMD get back to its feet -- and, on the flipside, if the tech infusion helps Qualcomm actually do something with Snapdragon except demo clunky vaporware prototypes.
Lets hope they put that money to good use. Intel needs a competent competitor
The desktop market is shrinking like theres no tomorrow and the mobile market is exploding and AMD decides to sell the only competitive graphics core standing against PowerVR. Intel needs a competition, but AMD deserves to fail for selling out of one of the biggest emerging markets on the planet. Theres a reason nVidia and Creative Labs are both heavily invested in Tegra and Zii (respectively), its because mobile market is going to canibalize the hell out of the PC world. This seems like a truly fatal mis-step to AMD: the Imageon line gave them a very unique and high performant mobile platform unmatched by anyone but PowerVR, and its a line they've licensed again and again. I can not fathom why they would sell it. Blast them to hell for doing it, the OpenGL ES market just went completely stale.
I completely agree with rektide. AMD had some sweet offerings in the mobile area (thus the reason Qualcomm bought them) and I am sad to them go. Now PowerVR can wallow in its own mediocrity without any really competition. That is, unless ARM can figure out how to start serriously moving with Mali.
You forgot that AMD still has ATI, in other words AMD can always open up a newer and better mobile platform for mobile pc/smartphone graphic's processors because they have the experience. I think it was a smart choice for AMD to sell off it's handheld graphics units to pay off debts or whatever they want it for. I will look forward to see what AMD will have to offer in the near future.
In light of this, I would like to see AMD attack the UMPC Processor market and come out with a better more efficient processor than the Atom. I think that they could make one that would out-spec the Atom 1.6 and cost less than it too. They really need to get their thumbs out of their asses or else we may see another major company go under. Where they really need to start is marketing something that Intel currently doesnt have. AMD has been second on everything. Really, the only thing that is keeping AMD alive is because of ATI.
@Techie: doesn't matter if AMD still has ATI. AMD has enough troubles of its own to restart mobile graphics tech from scratch. The whole reason the now Qualcomm Imageon WAS so good was because it was the result of 12 years of work from the BitBoys. Remember them? Hardware flameholders of Future Crew? Brothers to FutureMark and Max Payne?
Well, whatever is left of BitBoys is now part of Qualcomm, and we know how well Qualcomm's hardware, driver prowess, and licensing of it has gone.
Also, AMD must have been under some bad licensing terms to NOT have made any significant money on the Imageon and previous BitBoy tech that has been used in practically every recent Qualcomm SoC and mobile device.
PowerVR is now the only player selling embedded graphics core IPs. Freescale & quite a few others have been reliant on the Imageon platform AMD inherited from ATI, but it appears the days of there being market competition for mobile graphics cores are over.
This is a sad sad day for graphics core competition.
64 or 65 million???
Same question.
65 Million
Maybe Nilay's well paid, well enough to consider one million dollars as beer money, thus the old rule applies - "Thou shall not count, beer money", especially when it's in the title.
$65m, $1m goes to Engadget xD
Returned to the sender, apparently.
A million-dollar typo!
There is a typo, but does that really affect any of us? Unlike the other typo which said the 965 had core clock of 3.7, now THAT was a typo.
sad for ATi, first AMD sells ATi's Xilleon to Broadcom, now Imageon to Qualcomm, ATi's divisions were supposed to diversify AMD
AMD is not selling Imageon (with what i read, i might be wrong though), rather it is own mobile graphics sloutions to "Quackcomm" besides it can always spin off another handheld division within ATI if the market becomes right for them to do so.
the question is will this come back to bite HTC in the butt given they just signed with nvidia in an effort to use there tegra chips
Considering the issues HTC has had with Qualcomm and their graphics drivers, im sure HTC is happy to be rid of them.
Besides, if the rumors pan out:
http://video.aol.com/video-detail/nvidia-tegra-hd-mobile-phone-development-demo/1922051281
Yay, another thing for Quallcomm to ruin.
Qualcomm*
too bad, I would have paid $65M and ONE DOLLAR.
This is just Qualcomm trying to stay relevant. Now that Nvidia's tegra is looking awesome, and HTC is going with Tegra, Qualcomm had to make a move to stay in the game.