AMD offloads TV chip unit on Broadcom for $193m
You ought not to be in pictures
As AMD struggles to gain altitude against Intel, the distant second rival chip maker is tossing excess weight where it can. Today, AMD said it intends to sell its digital television business to Broadcom for $192.8m cash.
AMD's chief Dirk Meyer said the sale will help the company focus on its primary market of PC processors.
"AMD is executing a strategic plan to transform the company, becoming leaner and more focused while seeking to create a business model to deliver sustainable profitability," said Meyer.
The TV unit includes AMD's Xilleon and Theater 300 integrated processor range, and NXT receiver integrated circuits. It will become "the core of Broadcom's DTV line of business," according to Daniel Marotta, veep of Broadcom's Broadband Communications Group.
The group's 530 employees will be invited to join Broadcom.
Only last week, Intel introduced its own chip for TV set-top boxes: the Media Processor CE 3100 (previously code-named "Canmore"). The processor is expected to ship to device makers as soon as next month.
In July, AMD announced it had lost $1.9bn during the second quarter and dumped Hector Ruiz from its CEO spot. He was replaced with Meyer, who was the company's President and COO. A few months earlier, AMD announced a plan to cut 10 per cent of its workforce over the next two quarters.
Broadcom's acquisition is expected to close during its fourth quarter ending December 31. Both boards of directors have approved the transaction, and shareholder approval is not necessary for the deal, the companies said. ®
COMMENTS
Re:AIW, are you sure that what they mean?
Yeah. I've never heard of the Xileon, but the Theater is ATI's capture chip, and the NXT is a tuner. The older AIWs used a BT829 capture chip (BT for Brooktree, bought by Conexant a few years back.) I thought it was Rage128 and older with the BT829, but Google says it's odder. Apparently the *16MB* Rage128 AIW used the BT829 (and older RageII AIWs, Mach64 AIW, etc. did too)., while the *32MB* Rage128 AIW and the Rage128 Pro AIW used the Theater 100 (along with a bunch of Radeon models). And, they've been through a few revisions this last decade or so so they're up to the Theater 300.
AIW, are you sure that what they mean?
Can anyone confirm for sure that this is indeed talkng about the AIW?
My understanding is this is a CPU sub section of AMD (not part of the ATI aquistion) and related to embedded processors for a select video/settop market. ATI/AMD can and most likely will continue to release AIW brand cards - even if they are just a Radeon with a Broadcom (or other manufacture) TV tuner chip glued on. (well soldered anyways)
BTW AMD already got their value out of developing and creating these chips, so to sell of the line to Broadcomm makes good business sense, and gives them some cash for operations comfort.
@mario
"@Brandon
By mario Posted Tuesday 26th August 2008 06:29 GMT
my thoughts exactly. i still have my AIW rage128 pro card. if only i can get a mobo which supports AGP 2x/4x.
a moment of pure unbridled joy was when i got the gatos drivers to make it work on linux. never needed to boot into windoze again.
penguin coz it brings back memories of the good ol' linux days
"
you can ASRock 775Dual-VSTA dual/quad intel chip motherboard gives you both AGP and PCE but only at x4
you can use both AGP and PCe at the same time, you can use DDR or DDR2 but not both at the same time, it was built as a transition motherboard and its available everywere even today cheap.
http://www.anandtech.com/mb/showdoc.aspx?i=2814
they say "there was very little difference between DDR-400 and DDR2-533 on this platform" but thats not what i found when i finally got around to pulingthe DDR400 sticks, there was a large increase in several games FPS for instance,
so it seems perfect for what you want,but why you would want to use the old AIW rage128 pro card its only analogue input is it in ?, i dont know.
what good are these Xilleon processor's if they cant run AVC/H.264 Encoders/Transcoders and decoder Codecs in hardwre today, thats H.264 is were the world industry are today, so it seems like a good choice to end of life the thing surely.
AIW it was time to go
Hi, there are many good manufacturers of DTV boards and they are separate cards for media centers, etc. AIW was basically out of the running.
DTV chips
It was a noble effort but frankly when put up against other manufacturers of SoC chipsets for televisions they just didn't cut the mustard, doesn't matter how good your processors are, if you don't have the algorithms then your product will not perform.
Paris... because she knows how to use what she's got.
