Paul Hsieh's Graphics Home Page

Date

HeadLine

03/11/02

Creative Labs buys out 3DLabs

Well this should keep them afloat while they try to fend off nVidia. Problem is that high end graphics actually requires all around good performance, and nVidia is not sitting idly by and just letting 3DLabs rest on their laurels. (While 3DLabs may still rule in geometry/line-draw speed, they lose to nVidia in nearly every other category.)

Creative Labs press release

02/08/02

STMicro to sell off Imagination Technologies

Well it looks like Kyro was unable to hold its own against either ATI or nVidia. While their product was credible in its target market segment when it came out, they have clearly been unable to keep up with the pace set by nVidia. This is a very sad day as it means that the "deferred rendering" technology may die an untimely and undeserved death. With the 3DFX/GigaPixel acquisition nVidia may still bring such an architecture to market, however, so far it has shown no signs of doing so.

05/17/01

Nintendo game cube uses embedded memory

In an article on EETime.com, the Nintendo GameCube is described as a modestly architected machine with an emphasis on "real world" performance as opposed to benchmark performance. Ordinarily I would dismiss such a claim as "damage control", however, one very important feature that the PS/2 and X-Box is missing: embedded RAM for graphics. This was a touted as a being a potentially revolutionary technology by BitBoys and Rendition that didn't seem to go anywhere, but my inside info tells me that the MoSys folks are for real. It is essentially a large embedded on-chip cache that is used as a frame buffer + texture cache. The latency is the equivalent to 2 cycles at 400Mhz. Which is very nice. The main memory (which is just more MoSys ram, that's off chip) latency is only twice as bad as that! Holy chow! In essence, the whole thing will behave as if its always executing out of a local cache!

IBM's claims about leveraging off the existing tool chain has to be put into perspective though; the X-Box has a much larger and more sophisticated existing tool chain that developers are using (plus an additional extra market built in!)

All in all, however, I think the performance of the GameCube should not be underestimated. The memory bandwidth problems are actually quite important, and they will not likely be solved with equivalent efficiency in the X-Box (even nVidia's nForce using HyperTransport can't beat 4 cycle latency out to main memory.)

Story on EETimes.com

12/15/00

3DFX sells its assets to nVidia

That's it. 3DFX is out. The only significant remaining players are ATI and nVidia. With Matrox and 3DLabs remaining as small market players. From talking to ex-3DFX employees, the end was inevitable. The sad thing is that apparently 3DFX had many more designs than just their voodoo architecture, but corporate egos and just poor business decisions prevented them from supporting them. Products like Banshee were in debug mode for 6 months which is as long as nVidia has reduced their entire product cycle to.

Interestingly 3DFX got less than it paid for Gigapixel. I.e., it probably could have done without Gigapixel and just spent its money nursing its products ("Rampage" (3DFX's first non-Voodoo based architecture) was reportedly working at Alpha/Beta quality at the time that 3DFX decided to sell out to nVidia; certainly they could have brought this to market with $186 million.)

Story on C|Net

06/26/00

nVidia partners with ELSA on workstation products

Rather than buying out a board company, nVidia has instead worked a deal with ELSA to supply worstation versions of their product. This is important from workstation customers point of view, since that board, and the drivers are a non-trivial component of the product.

04/20/00

NeoMagic "refocusses" on Wireless

With ATI entering the notebook and mobil market, it was just a matter of time before NeoMagic (which does not understand 3D) would have to exit the graphics business.

Story on TechWeb

04/17/00

VIA acquires S3 graphics business

In this competitive market increasingly dominated by ATI, nVidia, as well as being assaulted from below by Intel with its integrated chipset, S3 and its mediocre products have found themselves without room to grow. In its bizarre mode of late of acquiring second rate technology companies (Centaur/Cyrix) VIA did not hesitate to pick up S3 as well.

04/10/00

3DLabs buys out Intense3D

In a move to solidify its position in the high end graphics arena, 3DLabs has moved to purchase the 3D division of Intergraph. These guys are known for producing the "Wildcat" graphics card which is second to none in its class (OpenGL CAD oriented rendering.)

Story on "theRegister"

03/27/00

3DFX buys out GigaPixel

In an unusual move towards some sort of consolidation, 3DFX has bought out graphics start-up Gigapixel. Gigapixel is an IP based company that is touting a deferred rendering architecture. My inside information tells me that 3DFX has been turning over employees by the bucket, and pursued Gigapixel to try to help boost their credibility in the hopes of winning the X-box contract.

Story on ebn online

02/16/00

ATI buys out ArtX

ATI has increased its SiliconValley presence by buying out ArtX. The deal is also interesting because ArtX has already won the contract to build the graphics subsystem for the Nintendo Dolphin.

Story on Silicon Strategies

11/05/99

Apple buys Raycer

The mysterious "Raycer Graphics" has been bought out by Apple before they even had a chance to start up their hype! From what I know, they were working on an extremely high end product for industrial use. While this may seem like part of a long term strategy by Apple, they were unable to retain all the employees.

08/19/99

Intel leave graphics add in card business

Trailing the field in performance, Intel has decided to exit the graphics add-in card business. While successfully taking low-end and asian markets, the i740 simply found itself unable to compete against faster consumer boards from nVidia and 3DFX. Intel will refocus its graphics group on integrated (with the chipset) graphics solutions.

Story on ebn online

06/22/99

Diamond Multimedia in talks to be acquired by S3

In a move that threatens to shut out graphics chip vendors from access to the most popular board manufacturer, S3, has laid the groundwork to buy Diamond out. This move in addition to 3DFX's recent move to acquire STB will make life a little more difficult for nVidia.

12/14/98

3DFX acquires STB Graphics

In a bizarre move, 3DFX has acquired STB graphics. Perhaps they are weary of having to win their business every time they spin a new chip and just want the simple solution of being able to sell the whole product (just like ATI does.)

Story on PCWORLD.COM

10/26/98

ATI buys out Chromatic Research

ATI buys out Chromatic Research. Chromatic Research's unique media processor solution did not find much of a following, but it is rumored that Chromatic is working on an x86 compatible microprocessor, which may be used in a set-top box that can run Windows. Of course, Chromatic has significant expertise in DVD and MPEG playback which is probably fairly valuable to ATI as well.

Story on UGEEK.COM

06/24/98

Micron buys out Rendition

Pioneer in the 3D graphics arena, Rendition has been purchased by Micron just as it was about to release its 3rd generation product (that was cancelled.) The best information I have is that Micron and Rendition are interested in working on embedded RAM solutions.

Other events