Hasta La Gadget!

Qualcomm announced that it has bought AMD’s handheld graphics unit for $65 million in cash. As part of the deal, Qualcomm has acquired graphics and multimedia technology assets, intellectual property and resources that were formerly the basis of AMD’s handheld business.

Qualcomm said in a statement that it has offered jobs to current AMD handheld graphics design and development employees; currently they’re working on mobile 2D and 3D graphics, audio/video, display, and architecture design. Both companies have already received regulatory approval for the deal.

Back at CTIA 2007, AMD showed off its then-new Imageon line of mobile graphics chips; the company since had trouble finding a handset maker willing to incorporate them. Last year, AMD first announced that it was considering selling off its handheld graphics unit.

NVIDIA has yet to step in and confirm this publicly, but a purported leaked memo from the outfit has been posted over at VR-Zone. What’s it say, you ask? Only that the company “strongly recommends that customers transition to the latest revision of the NB8E-SET GPUs as soon as possible.” Said revision taps a new Hitachi underfill packaging material that “improves product quality and enhances operating life by improved thermal cycling reliability.” If you’ll recall, certain PC vendors such as Dell issued their own firmware updates to combat the weak packaging set in the chip maker’s faulty GPUs earlier this year, but it appears that NVIDIA’s solution is to just let bygones be bygones and get on with the new and improved.

[Via Electronista]

Filed under: Gaming, Peripherals

NVIDIA reportedly urging customers to buy new problem-free GPUs originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 26 Dec 2008 16:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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