

HTC Buys S3 Graphics From VIA, WTI For $300 Million - tilt
http://techcrunch.com/2011/07/06/smartphone-maker-htc-buys-s3-graphics-from-via-wti-for-300-million/

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Tuna-Fish
The patent angle is also interesting -- S3 did some important early 3d
acceleration research, and it is literally impossible to ship a modern system
that uses either Direct3D or OpenGL without licensing some S3 patents. Every
single laptop, notebook, game console or handset on the market today uses S3
tech, and now HTC has the ability to stop them from being sold. This is just
the kind of blunt instrument that HTC needs to keep Apple and it's patent
claims at bay.

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msbarnett
Erm, how would that work? Apple is just shipping PowerVR chips. Presumably
PowerVR has the proper licenses, or a cross-licensing agreement with S3.

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th0ma5
Then they would revoke the PowerVR license then in that case, right? Or at the
very least modify the terms?

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cma
That isn't how contracts work unless that was explicitly in the original
agreement.

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mhd
Kinda sad that a lot of graphics manufacturers are either out of the picture
(Tseng, Voodoo) or just do embedded work (PowerVR). I think a bit of
competition would be good for the desktop market…

(Still remember my S3 Trio. First card I had with decent X11 support.)

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Klinky
This is interesting, perhaps HTC is going to license ARM tech for their own
proprietary package w/ integrated S3 graphics. That would essentially cut out
Texas Instruments, Qualcomm & nVidia from one of the largest handset
manufacturers. Obviously it's probably not going to be an overnight
transition.

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schumihan
I just notice VIA and HTC are founded by the same woman[1], and I know the
financial situation of VIA is not good...

[1] [http://blog.laptopmag.com/2011-most-important-women-in-
mobil...](http://blog.laptopmag.com/2011-most-important-women-in-mobile-
tech/19)

