Re: HARDWARE: Open-Source-Friendly Graphics Cards -- Viable?

[Kendall Bennett]

Jon Smirl <jonsmirl@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> I have heard a lot of complaints from embedded people about having
> few choices for graphics chips. Many of the low end chips from
> ATI/NVidia are no longer in production and you are forced into
> buying more chip than you want. You should ask about this on
> embedded developer lists. 

Most embedded customers care less about overall performance of the 
graphics hardware but more about low cost, low power and longevity. That 
is the reason that ATI committed to continue production of the Radeon 
Mobility M1 for many years to come. That is also the reason the Chips & 
Tech (now Asiliant) 6900 chipset is so popular for embedded customers, 
because they have been using the same hardware for years (but now that 
the 69000 is winding down, many are moving to the Mobility M1).

So the biggest hurdle with selling a solution such as this to the 
embedded market is going to be customer confidence that if they invest 
the time and energy building a solution around a particular chip, that 
the chip will still be around for them to purchase from the suppler in 5-
7 years time. If the company is small and not well known, that might be a 
problem.

Then again if the solution is 'Open' so that the customer could second 
source it from a different vendor, you may get a lot of traction in the 
embedded space. So that might be an angle to play.

Regards,

---
Kendall Bennett
Chief Executive Officer
SciTech Software, Inc.
Phone: (530) 894 8400
http://www.scitechsoft.com

~ SciTech SNAP - The future of device driver technology! ~


-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/