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S3 Graphics, Ltd (commonly referred to as S3) is an American computer graphics company. The company is perhaps best known for its ViRGE and its much improved successor Savage 3D and Chrome series. Struggling against competition from 3dfx Interactive, ATI and Nvidia during the height of the 3D accelerator wars, the graphics portion of the company was spun off into a new joint effort with VIA Technologies. The new company focused on the mobile graphics market, and became a major player in this space. The company was purchased by HTC in 2011. Although primarily a mobile technology company, they still^[when?] produce graphics accelerators for home computers under the 'S3 Chrome' brand name.

History[edit]

S3 was founded and incorporated in January 1989 by Dado Banatao and Ronald Yara. On March 5, 1993, S3 began an initial public offering of 2,000,000 shares of common stock on Nasdaq. After several profitable years as an independent startup company, and then struggling with the transition to integrated 3D cards, S3 remodeled itself as a consumer electronics company and sold off its core graphics division to a joint venture with VIA Technologies for $323 million. The joint venture, S3 Graphics, continues to develop and market chipsets based on the S3 graphics technology.

The reformed company carried over a substantial cash pile from the profitable TRIO (see below) days and a successful investment in UMC, a Taiwanesesemiconductor foundry. On November 15, 2000, S3 changed its name to SONICBlue and its NASDAQ stock symbol to SBLU. The new business model focused on digital media and information appliance opportunities while the graphics division was sold to VIA Technologies as S3 Graphics. ReplayTV, Rio, and GoVideo were some of the brands developed by SONICBlue. On March 21, 2003, SONICBlue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

S3 Graphics first only developed graphic cores for VIA IGP chipset while some years later they again began to produce graphics accelerators for home computers under the 'Chrome' brand name. These include the Deltachrome, Gammachrome, Chrome S27 and Chrome 440GTX.

On July 6, 2011, it was announced that HTC Corporation would buy the VIA Technologies stake in S3 Graphics, thus becoming the majority owner of S3 Graphics.^[1]

Products[edit]

S3 produces graphics cards primarily for PCs. While the earlier products such as the TRIO range were 2D only, later 3D functionality was added with the ViRGE and then Savage cards. More recently S3 chipsets have been sold as integrated VIA northbridge parts. However these units are also available for PCI-E. The Chrome 440 series supports DirectX 10.1, HD Blu-ray video, and 3D acceleration powerful enough to run most of today's games on moderate settings. Their latest graphics card, the Chrome 530gt supports DirectX 10.1, OpenGL 3.0, HD-DVD and HD Blu-ray video playback and GPGPU acceleration for image processing using S3FotoPro, video color correction, video encoding and transcoding, scientific research, game physics, engineering analysis, financial analysis and signal processing.

Graphics controllers[edit]

• S3 911, 911A (June 10, 1991) - S3's first Windows accelerators (16/256-color, high-color acceleration)
• S3 924 - 24-bit true-color acceleration
• S3 801, 805, 805i - mainstream DRAMVESA Windows accelerators (16/256-color, high-color acceleration)
• S3 928 - 24/32-bit true-color acceleration, DRAM or VRAM
• S3 805p, 928p - S3's first PCI support
• S3 Vision864, Vision964 (1994) - 2nd generation Windows accelerators (64-bit wide framebuffer)
• S3 Vision868, Vision968 - S3's first motion video accelerator (zoom and YUV->RGB conversion)
• S3 Trio 32, 64, 64V+, 64V2 (1995) - S3's first integrated (RAMDAC+VGA) accelerator. The 64 bit versions were S3's most successful product range.
• ViRGE (no suffix), VX, DX, GX, GX2, Trio3D - S3's first Windows 3D-accelerators. Notoriously poor 3D. Sold well to OEMs mainly because of low price and excellent 2D-performance.
• Savage 3D (1998), 4 (1999), 2000 (2000)- S3's first recognizably modern 3D hardware implementation. Poor yields meant actual clock speeds were 30% below expectations, and buggy drivers caused further problems. S3 Texture Compression went on to become an industry standard, and the Savage3D's DVD acceleration was market leading at introduction. Savage2000 was announced as the first chip with integrated Transformation and Lighting (S3TL) co-processor.
• Aurora64V+, S3 ViRGE/MX, SuperSavage, SavageXP - Mobile chipsets
• ProSavage, Twister, UniChrome, Chrome 9 - Integrated implementations of Savage chipset for VIA motherboards
• GammaChrome, DeltaChrome, Chrome 20 series, Chrome 440 series, Chrome 500 series - Discrete cards post acquisition by VIA.
• S3 GenDAC, SDAC - VGA RAMDAC with high/true-color bypass (SDAC had integrated PLLs, dot-clocks, and hardware Windows cursor)

Media chipsets

• Sonic/AD sound chipset - A programmable, sigma-delta audio DAC, featuring an integrated PLL, stereo 16-bit analogue output
• SonicVibes - PCI Audio Accelerator
• Scenic/MX2 - MPEG Decoder

Device drivers[edit]

Market trends[edit]

From formation in 1989 it took S3 two years to develop the world's first single-chip Graphical User Interface (GUI) accelerator. Integrated functionality enabled attractive pricing, and solid features for competitive prices remained a hallmark of S3's strategy.

S3's most notable product range is the S3 TRIO 2D chipset. It remains one of the best selling graphics chipsets of all time. Updated in a number of timely revisions, each time S3 managed to keep the series one step ahead of the competition.

However, TRIO was a 2D range, and by the mid 1990s consumers and OEMs started to demand 3D functionality from graphics cards. Internally, S3 failed to recognise this transition quickly enough, and had to rush out the S3 ViRGE range of 3D cards. While cheap, and popular with some OEMs for this reason, performance and drivers were poor. Some enthusiasts even nicknamed them graphics decelerators.

The integrated modern style 3D feature produced by S3, was the Savage series of graphics cards. Notably these pioneered S3TC under the proprietary METAL API, subsequently adopted by Microsoft under royalty, as an industry standard for texture compression in DirectX.

Savage also introduced a motion compensation engine, a quality video scaler, as well as hardware alpha-blended sub-picture blending, a first. However, the 3D performance of the Savage cards was never quite enough to take significant market share. Poor yields meant actual clock speeds were 30% lower than had been projected during development, and the transform and lighting engine implementation was flawed.

Via Graphic Storytelling

It became apparent S3's integrated 2D technology was no longer enough to ensure the overall success of the chipset. While S3 could have continued development of the Savage cards, and most likely resolved the outstanding issues, instead in 2001 the S3 management decided to sell off the core business to VIA for $323 million.

Subsequently, Savage derived chips turned up in numerous VIA motherboard chipsets as an integrated north bridge solution, such as Twister and UniChrome. More recent discrete derivations have carried the brand names DeltaChrome and GammaChrome. In this manner, S3 derived chips have held onto about a 10% share of the overall PC graphics market.

SONICblue[edit]

SONICblue was an American consumer electronics company resulting from the 1999 merger between computer peripheral maker Diamond Multimedia and graphics chipset maker S3 Incorporated.

In November 2000, the combined company changed its name to SONICblue and changed its focus from graphics chipsets and computer peripherals to consumer electronics, such as the Rio line of MP3 players. In January 2001, the graphics chipset business was sold to a joint venture between SONICblue and VIA called S3 Graphics. Later that same year, the company bought ReplayTV, a maker of PVR systems, and Sensory Science Corporation, a company selling dual-deck DVD/VCR systems under the GoVideo brand name.

On March 21, 2003, SONICblue filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and sold off its main product lines.

On April 16, 2003, D&M Holdings, the parent company of Denon Ltd. and Marantz Japan Inc. purchased virtually all operating assets from SONICblue and now produces ReplayTV and Rio units under a new subsidiary, Digital Networks North America (DNNA), Inc. The last piece of the company was effectively sold in late 2003, when Best Data acquired the Diamond's Supra modem business along with rights to the Diamond Multimedia name for use in a new video card division.

In August 2005, that company said it would discontinue making MP3 players, after it had licensed its digital audio software technology to chipmaker SigmaTel the month before.^[2]

References[edit]

1. ^McGlaun, Shane (6 July 2011). 'VIA, WTI Sell Stakes in S3 Graphics to HTC'. DailyTech. Retrieved 28 January 2014.
2. ^'D&M Holdings Inc. to Exit Mass-Market Portable Digital Audio Player Business'. Rio Audio. 26 August 2005. Archived from the original on 1 February 2014. Retrieved 28 January 2014.

External links[edit]

VIA Technologies Inc. (Chinese: 威盛電子; pinyin: Wēishèng Diànzǐ), is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboardchipsets, CPUs, and memory. It was the world's largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets.^{[citation needed]} As a fabless semiconductor company, VIA conducts research and development of its chipsets in-house, then subcontracts the actual (silicon) manufacturing to third-party merchant foundries, such as TSMC.

History[edit]

The company was founded in 1987, in Fremont, California, USA by Cher Wang. In 1992, it was decided to move the headquarters to Taipei, Taiwan in order to establish closer partnerships with the substantial and growing IT manufacturing base in Taiwan and neighbouring China.^[2]

In 1999, VIA acquired most of Cyrix, then a division of National Semiconductor. That same year, VIA acquired Centaur Technology from Integrated Device Technology, marking its entry into the x86microprocessor market. VIA is the maker of the VIA C3, VIA C7 & VIA Nano processors, and the EPIA platform. The Cyrix MediaGX platform remained with National Semiconductor.

In 2001, VIA established the S3 Graphics joint venture.

In January 2005, VIA began the VIA pc-1 Initiative, to develop information and communication technology systems to benefit those with no access to computers or Internet. In February 2005, VIA celebrated production of the 100 millionth VIA AMD chipset.

On 29 August 2008, VIA announced that they would release official 2D accelerated Linux drivers for their chipsets, and would also release 3D accelerated drivers.^[3]

In 2013, VIA entered into an agreement with the Shanghai Municipal Government to create a fabless semiconductor company called Zhaoxin.^[4] The joint venture is producing x86 compatible CPUs for the Chinese market.^[5]

Products[edit]

By the mid-1990s, VIA's business focused on integrated chipsets for the PC market. Among PC users then, VIA was best known for its motherboard (core-logic) chipsets. However, VIA's products include audio controllers, network/connectivity controllers, low-power CPUs, and even CD/DVD-writer chipsets. PC and peripheral vendors such as ASUS then bought the chipsets for inclusion into their own product brands.

Via Graphics Driver For Windows 7

In the late 1990s, VIA began diversifying its core-logic business, and the company made business acquisitions forming a CPU division, graphics division, and a sound division. As advances in silicon manufacturing continue to increase the level of integration and functionality in chipsets, VIA acquired these divisions at the time to remain competitive in the core-logic market.

VIA has produced multiple x86 compatible CPUs, through its acquisitions of Cyrix and Centaur Technology. VIA produces CPUs through the Zhaoxin joint venture. Many of the CPUs are BGA chips sold pre-soldered onto a motherboard. Some of the VIA x86 processors also contain an undocumented Alternate Instruction Set.

Market trends[edit]

By 1996, VIA established itself as an important supplier of PC components with its chipsets for Socket 7 platform. With the Apollo VP3 chipset in 1997 VIA pioneered AGP support for Socket 7 processors.^[6] VIA's market position between 1998 to 2000 derived from the success of its Pentium III chipsets. Around 2001 Intel discontinued the development of its SDRAM chipsets, and stated as policy that only RDRAM memory would be supported going forward. Since RDRAM was more expensive and offered few, if any, obvious performance advantages, manufacturers found they could ship performance-equivalent PCs at a lower cost by using VIA chipsets.

Via Graphics

In response to increasing market competition, VIA decided to buy out the ailing S3 Graphics business in 2001. While the S3 Savage chipset was not fast enough to survive as a discrete graphics-chip solution^[buzzword], its low manufacturing cost made it an ideal integrated-graphics solution^[buzzword] as part of the VIA northbridge. At the time under VIA, the S3 brand generally held onto a 10% share of the PC graphics market, behind Intel, AMD, and Nvidia. VIA also included the VIA Envy soundcard on its motherboards, which offered 24-bit sound. While its Pentium 4 chipset designs struggled to win market share in the face of legal threats from Intel, the K8T800 chipset for the Athlon 64 was popular.

From 2004 to 2012, VIA continued the development of its VIA C3 and VIA C7 as well as other x86 and x86-64 compatible processors, targeting small, light, low power applications, a market space in which VIA continues to be successful. For example, in January 2008, VIA unveiled the VIA Nano, an 11 mm × 11 mm footprint VM-enabled x86-64 processor, which debuted in May 2008, for ultra-mobile PCs. By 2013 with its Zhaoxin joint-venture, VIA continues to create x86-64 compatible cpu designs derived from their 1999 purchase of Centaur Technologies and integrated-graphics solutions owing to VIA's earlier relationship and eventual 2001 purchase of S3 Graphics.

Legal issues[edit]

On the basis of the IDTCentaur acquisition,^[7] VIA appeared to have come into possession of at least three patents, which covered key aspects of processor technology used by Intel. On the basis of the negotiating leverage these patents offered, in 2003 VIA arrived at an agreement with Intel that allowed for a ten-year patent cross license, enabling VIA to continue to design and manufacture x86 compatible CPUs. VIA was also granted a three-year grace period in which it could continue to use Intel socket infrastructure.

S3 Via Graphics

See also[edit]

Via Graphics Cards

References[edit]

1. ^'VIA Technologies 2017 Annual Report'(PDF). s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com. Retrieved 6 December 2018.
2. ^'Corporate History - VIA Technologies, Inc'. via.com.tw. Archived from the original on 3 January 2014. Retrieved 3 January 2014.
3. ^'VIA Releases FOSS Graphics Driver'. Slashdot. 31 August 2008. Retrieved 3 January 2014.
4. ^Chan, Leon (3 January 2018). 'Via's Chinese Joint Venture Aims For Competitive Home-Grown X86 SOCs By 2019'. Hexus. Retrieved 3 January 2018.
5. ^Tyson, Mark (2 January 2018). 'VIA and Zhaoxin ZX- family of x86 processors roadmap shared'. Hexus.net. Retrieved 2 January 2018.
6. ^[1]^{[dead link]}
7. ^'VIA and Intel Settle Patent Infringement Cases'. VIA Technologies, Inc. Archived from the original on 11 March 2007. Retrieved 12 March 2007.

Via Graphics Driver Linux