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Technology Stocks : Logpoint Technologies (LGPT)
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To: mnispel who wrote (637)5/5/1999 6:49:00 PM
From: kash johal   of 698
 
mnispel,

Re:" One probably can assume that since LGPTs technology is made up in part by look up tables, precision is also in (large) part a function of the tables. More precision requires more bits per element per table and perhaps larger tables (rows and/or columns)."

Yes, this is the compromise.

One can trade off precision with memory size using their technology.
As you handle large words and need more precision the memory goes up logarithmically. :-)

In a general purpose machine you need to offer the maximum accuracy to fit the largest customer base.

In the embedded market most 8 bitters don't even offer FPU in hardware as it is not typically required. The newer 32 bitters like ARM cover both ends I believe.

There several major problems with the companies business premise:

1. That there is a crying need for a soft imprecise FPU.
They have had patents for 5 years in place.
They have been selling for that long and have no real revenues.
Why????
It would seem to me that if there was a huge market need served
there has been ample time to serve it.

2. There is a huge revenue stream here.

The company has been carefull to hide what the revenue stream is.
In this software utility/tool market these libraries are sold for
a modest license fee with no RECURRING revenues. So even if millions of dollars of end products are shipped using these libraries the company only realises revenue up front with the sale.

This is radically different from the IP business model ala Rambus or ARM. Here there are significant up front revenues and then a downstream license revenue.

3. New model.

It seems that the comapany having failed with the software model is now looking at trying to move to an IP model. Here they could offer say a synthesizable LGPT core for ASIC customers to embed into an ASIC chip.

This approach probably has some merit as indeed certain folks are very die size/power sensitive.

However to execute you need vastly differing skillsets than these software folks have and significant semiconductor/eda expertise. In addition such a business has a payoff that is 5 years down the road even if successfull-just look at ARM's or Rambus's revenue stream.

As somebody with over 20 years ASIC expertise I can warrant for the problems/resources required for such an effort.

PS I had requested that they send me an NDA. Nothing forthcoming so far.



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