londisteCan someone do a summary of what LG was complaining about?

R0H1TBecause Sammy, Huawei et al must be paying something to AMD, these 3 likely didn't?

londisteCan someone do a summary of what LG was complaining about?

Unified shaders are D3D10/SM4. Unified shaders is a strange thing to have a patent on - AMD did Xenos and Terascale, Nvidia had Tesla around the same time and if my memory serves right Intel, PowerVR, S3 as well as Adreno/Mali use unified shaders. Some or most of these were developed at around the same time.

londisteThanks, the list of companies quickly gave good results to search:
AMD Files Patent Infringement Complaint Against LG, MediaTek, Sigma Designs, and Vizio (Anandtech)

Sigma Designs is in the process of Liquidation and Distribution.

Sigma Designs (Nasdaq: SIGM) stock information can be found here.

Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission can be fund here.



For information on the Sigma’s Z-Wave product family, please contact Silicon Labs or the Z-Wave Alliance.

For information on Sigma’s Home Connectivity business line, please contact Integrated Silicon Solutions (ISSI).

For information on Sigma’s SmartTV and Set-top Box business lines, please contact V-Silicon at (510) 897-0168.

londisteCan someone do a summary of what LG was complaining about?

United States Patent No. 7,633,506 (“the ‘506 Patent”) is entitled “Parallel pipeline graphics system” and issued on December 15, 2009 to inventors Mark-M. Leather and Eric Demers.

Prior to the ‘506 Patent, efforts were made to improve the realism of 3-D
graphics by generating and storingia greater amount of data that describes the
This image data was stored in a device known as a frame buffer. In order to store a greater
amount of data in the frame buffer, the industry believed that it was necessary to make the size of
the frame buffer larger. However, the GPU architectures known at the time of the ‘506 Patent
behaved as a bottleneck, and were unsuitable for rendering vast amounts of graphics data to a
larger size frame buffer.

The ‘506 Patent solved the bottleneck problem by disclosing a new
graphics processing architecture, which enables a greater amount of graphics data to be rendered
to a larger size frame buffer. In some embodiments, the graphics processing architecture includes
multiple parallel graphics “pipelines.” Moreover, each pipeline can feature a special circuit that
is programmable to perform texture shading in addition to color shading operations. Based on
the innovations disclosed by the ‘506 Patent, modern graphics processors are able to deliver
higher-quality realism of three-dimensional graphics.

United States Patent No. 7,796,133 (“the ‘133 Patent”) is entitled “Unified shader,” and issued on September 14, 2010 to inventors Mark M. Leather and Eric Demers.

The ‘133 Patent relates to specialized “texture” processing circuitry that is
employed by GPUs. Texture processing is a technology that is used, for example, to allow a 2-D
image of a brick wall to be mapped to a 3-D wall object in a perspective-correct way as shown
below.

Because artists and game designers made heavy-use of textures, the
conventional wisdom in the graphics processing industry was to employ highly specialized and
dedicated “fixed-fimction” circuitry for applying textures to pixels, and separate fixed function
circuitry for color shading. The disadvantage of this approach is that it constrained the generality,
flexibility, and overall usefulness of shading algorithms.

The ‘133 Patent departs from this conventional approach and instead
provides a specialized circuit that is capable of performing both texture and color operations.
This novel circuit architecture employs a combination of fixed-function and programmable
circuitry stages for texture and color operations. Advantageously, in some embodiments, any
operation, be it for color shading, or texture shading, may loop back and be combined with any
other operation. As a result, the ‘133 Patent simplifies the complexity of programming for two
separate conventional fixed-function circuits with different levels of precision. In addition, the
‘133 Patent provides improved utilization of graphics circuitry, which enables system
manufacturers to build more power efficient graphics circuitry.

United States Patent No. 8,760,454 (“the ‘454 Patent”) is entitled “Graphics processing architecture employing a unified shader,” and issued on June 24, 2014 to inventors Stephen L. Morein, Laurent Lefebvre, Andrew E. Gruber, and Andi Skende.

Prior to the ‘454 Patent, and the advent of GPUs more generally, the
industry employed general-purpose processors to render 3-D computer graphics in software. But
general purpose processors handled graphics processing operations in an inefficient way, leading
to poor performance.

As a result, the industry progressed away from general purpose processors
to GPU circuitry that was specialized for graphics processing. To improve upon the
inefficiencies of general purpose processors, the universal belief was that these GPUs needed
separate, discrete, and dedicated circuitry stages, with each circuitry stage performing different
graphics processing operations. For example, one dedicated circuitry stage would perform
geometry processing (concerning the triangles representing a 3-D object), and another would
perform pixel processing (concerning the pixels making up the 2-D representation of that 3-D
object). These different circuitry stages were organized in a sequential, pipelined fashion to form
a GPU having a “fixed-function” architecture.

While fixed-fimction architecture GPUs showed promising performance
gains over the general purpose processor approach, they were relatively large in size, with much
of the real estate being taken up by the geometry and pixel processing hardware. In addition, as a
result of the serialized architecture, the geometry processor operated on the 3-D geometrical
triangle data before the pixel processor could operate on pixel data, which resulted in a
performance penalty.

The ‘454 Patent solved these problems by disclosing a novel “unified
shader” hardware architecture. In a break from the fixed-function architecture, the unified shader
hardware architecture includes a shared processing unit that can handle both geometry and pixel
processing operations, while leaving certain other graphics operations to dedicated, fixed
function circuitry. In some embodiments, the unified shader hardware can operate on vertex and
pixel data simultaneously. Despite initial skepticism, the graphics processing industry has
embraced AMD’s groundbreaking unified shader architecture. By employing the patented
unified shader hardware architecture, graphics processors are smaller and more power efficient.
As a result, the ‘454 Patent enables smaller form factor consumer products that are more power
efficient.

United States Patent Application No. 14/614,967 (“the ‘967 Application”) is entitled “Graphics processing architecture employing a unified shader,” and was filed on February 5, 2015. The ‘967 Application was allowed on January 12, 2017, and is anticipated to issue in the near fiiture to inventors Stephen L. Morein, Laurent Lefebvre, Andrew E. Gruber, and Andi Skende.

Prior to the ‘967 Application, and the advent of GPUs more generally, the
industry employed general-purpose processors to render 3-D computer graphics in software. But
general purpose processors handled graphics processing operations in an inefficient way, leading
to poor performance.

As a result, the industry progressed away from general purpose processors
to GPU circuitry that was specialized for graphics processing. To improve upon the
inefficiencies of general purpose processors, the universal belief was that these GPUs needed
separate, discrete, and dedicated circuitry stages, with each circuitry stage performing different
graphics processing operations. For example, one dedicated circuitry stage would perform
geometry processing (concerning the triangles representing a 3-D object), and another would
perform pixel processing (concerning the pixels making up the 2-D representation of that 3-D
object). These different circuitry stages were organized in a sequential, pipelined fashion to form
a GPU having a “fixed-function” architecture.

While fixed-function architecture GPUs showed promising performance
gains over the general purpose processor approach, they were relatively large in size, with much
of the real estate being taken up by the geometry and pixel processing hardware. In addition, as a
result of the serialized architecture, the geometry processor operated on the 3-D geometrical
triangle data before the pixel processor could operate on pixel data, which resulted in a
performance penalty.

The ‘967Application solved these problems by disclosing a novel “unified
shader” hardware architecture. In a break from the fixed-function architecture, the unified shader
hardware architecture includes a shared processing unit that can handle both geometry and pixel
processing operations, while leaving certain other graphics operations to dedicated, fixed
function circuitry. In some embodiments, the unified shader hardware can operate on vertex and
pixel data simultaneously. Despite initial skepticism, the graphics processing industry has
embraced AM1)’s groundbreaking unified shader architecture. By employing the patented
unified shader hardware architecture, graphics processors are smaller and more power efficient.
As a result, the ‘967 Application enables smaller form factor consumer products that are more
power efficient.

R0H1TBecause Sammy, Huawei et al must be paying something to AMD, these 3 likely didn't?

Ferrum MasterLG is stinking more and more in almost every front they compete and if you have business with them it is a nightmare.

A fish rots from the head down.

Dave65LG use to be great. but now they have zero customer support. Sad really!

Ferrum MasterLG is stinking more and more in almost every front they compete and if you have business with them it is a nightmare.

A fish rots from the head down.

eidairaman1Their appliances suck

All I can say is Good, maybe a new arch will finally come out.

CammTheir fridges are pretty good.

akamateauThe implications of this Intellectual Property win by AMD go far beyond this litigation.
You have to ask yourself why would the PATB try and vacate AMD's Patents? In my opinion they were approached by Intel.
Why did INtel poach so many AMD Radeon executives? WIth AMD IP removed from AMD Intel and Raja Khoduri would be able to copy Radeon GPU's.
This decision ends Intel's GPU prospect rather effectively. At least that is my opinion anyway.

eidairaman1Till it breaks.

CammI have I think 11 years warranty on mine. First two years have been fine, and being honest, if its irretreviably broken at 12 years, so be it, $100 a year for a fridge isn't the end of the world.

Dave65LG use to be great. but now they have zero customer support. Sad really!

akamateauThis decision ends Intel's GPU prospect rather effectively. At least that is my opinion anyway.

londisteIntel already has unified shader architecture as well as broad cross-licensing agreements with both AMD and Nvidia.

akamateauIntel does not manufacture Monitors or TV's. Just because Intel has a licensing agreement in place does not mean that ALL IP is licensed. Intel has cross license with AMD regarding x86-64 micro-architecture. They do not have GPU or graphics cross licensing in place. Why should they?