ATI targets sub-$1,000 market while other vendors get OEM wins

Toronto, Canada — Having captured the mainstream desktop PC graphics market with its Rage 3-D AGP accelerators, graphics market leader ATI Technologies Inc. is now turning its focus toward the sub-$1,000 market with its recent introduction of the Rage XL and Rage XC 0.25-micron graphics chips.

ATI has already made a concerted effort to attack the PC notebook market trying to take market share away from incumbent NeoMagic. Now, the company is looking to distance itself in the basic PC market where it already plays a heavy role. The company uses its older generations of graphics accelerators for the sub-$1,000 market but with its Rage XL and XC the company is claiming to bring the performance quality and functions up a few notches.

ATI claims the chips will provide high quality graphics for a price low enough that PC OEMs who want to remain in the sub-$1,000 market can do so while offering quality multimedia functions. The Rage XL and XC both feature 2x AGP graphics, 3-D and 2-D acceleration as well as video acceleration and DVD hardware decoding.

The Rage XL has an integrated TMDS transmitter and supports digital flat panels suing either the P&D or DFP interface standards. Both chips are compatible with ATI’s Rage Pro and Rage 128 graphics accelerators so OEMs can pursue migration paths as new chips come on-line and older generation devices get cheaper. Both the Rage XL and XC are sampling with production slated for March of this year priced at $24 and $18, respectively, in 10,000 unit quantities.

The graphics chips for the sub-$1,000 market feature an integrated 1.2 million triangles per second and include a 4 kilobyte on-chip texture cache and support for edge anti-aliasing, Gouraud shading, single pass bi- and tri-linear texture filtering as well as Direct 3D texture lighting and special effects like alpha blending, fog, reflections and shadows.

Both chips are optimized for the segment zero microprocessors including Intel’s Celeron and AMD’s K6 processor.

Design Wins

Hot on the heels of S3 Incorporated being the latest beneficiary of Intel’s endorsement (EN, Dec. 21, 1998), the company has recently signed up Fujitsu Computers Limited to utilize S3’s Savage3D graphics accelerator in its new line of high-end multimedia PCs targeted at gamers.

Intel and S3 signed a ten year deal that could possible include the exchange of technology and access to intellectual property rights. S3 said it will utilize Intel’s technology and help only to further its own graphics needs. While the world waits to see if the former graphics leader can climb back into the lead position with the help of the mighty microprocessor company, S3 continues to sign additional OEM design wins for its Savage3D chip.

The PCs from Fujitsu are slated to begin shipping next month featuring 3-D graphics and DVD/video playback through the S3 accelerator. Since introducing the Savage3D graphics processor in the summer of last year the company has signed up more than 35 companies including AoPen, Hercules Computer Technology and STB systems to use the Savage accelerator.

With Fujitsu, the company can now penetrate the Japanese market even further while maintaining a significant presence in the U.S.

Meanwhile, struggling 3Dlabs, Inc. has found another design win for its Oxygen GMX graphics accelerator board. Gateway, based in North Sioux City, SD, will utilize the graphics accelerator in its E-5200 and E-5250 Windows NT workstations equipped with Pentium II and Pentium II Xeon 450MHz processors.

The Oxygen board will be used to meet the demand of graphics professionals, 3Dlabs says, including those who use 3-D modeling, animation, digital content creation and CAD/CAM/CAE applications.

While 3Dlabs has struggled in the PC space with its graphics accelerator and board products the company is moving steady with its workstation graphics chips and boards. To enable the company to better suit its customers and to help generate additional revenue, 3Dlabs recently acquired a desktop PC graphics board company called Dynamic Pictures.

In other graphics news, 3Dfx Interactive Inc. has also garnered a design win for its Voodoo Banshee graphics accelerator from Micron Electronics, Inc. The move will place the 3-D/2-D graphics chip in the mass market for numerous multimedia applications, the company said.

Micron will utilize the chip in its Millennia Max desktop PCs that are powered by Pentium processors. 3Dfx has had its Voodoo Banshee accelerator shipped in PCs from Gateway, Quantex Microsystems, Pionex Technologies, Tiny Computers and CyberMax.

The Micron Millennia Max PCs feature a 6X DVD-ROM drive, a PCI 128-bit voice wavetable audio, multiple hard drives and an Iomega Zip drive along with the Voodoo Banshee and Pentium power processor. Last month, 3Dfx claimed to have shipped more than one million Voodoo Banshees into the mainstream market.

ATLANTA–The Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) here last week said it would use source code from Autodesk’s HOOPS 3D graphics application programming interface (API) as the basis for its Video Advanced Graphics Interface (VAGI) standard.

In addition, VESA during Spring Comdex said the VAGI standard would implement its API for Apple and Sun platforms in addition to supporting Intel’s architecture. Whether Apple will openly support the VAGI standard could not be learned. Meanwhile, other VESA developments included:

* A VESA Media Channel (VMC) developers conference was set for August, in Santa Clara, Calif. VideoLogic is a major OEM player in VMC; semiconductor supporters include Brooktree, Oak Technology, and Cirrus Logic. VMC is competing for graphics memory subsystem designs with the Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus multimedia spec.

* A flat panel controller interface standard being co-developed with the Commerce Department’s NIST is now scheduled for release in December.

* VL-bus officials are still in discussion with IBM and Motorola about doing a VESA local bus implementation for the PowerPC. Rumors about such an implementation first surfaced earlier this year (EN, March 14) and Motorola recently said a chipset maker will soon release a product providing the bus interface (EN, March 23).

he prototype API for the VAGI standard, meanwhile, is expected to be released shortly now that VESA has settled on Autodesk’s HOOPS. Sample code is expected to be released simultaneously for Intel, Sun and Apple platforms. Intel earlier this year introduced its 3DRender programming interface for x86 and Pentium-based systems (EN, May 2).

According to sources, the VAGI group received three proposals for the API, including one from Intel ally ATI Technologies. Ithaca Software, which has developed products supporting Autodesk’s HOOPS API, also will put its source code into the public domain to be used as the base for VAGI code. Scott Vouri, chairman of the VESA board, said “The purpose of VAGI is provide a low level interface that software can write to but would provide functions that hardware rendering accelerators could hook out if they implemented some algorithms in hardware; otherwise the drawing would be done by a software sub routine. It’s just above a BIOS interface.”

Intel’s 3DRender programming interface, which was described as a portability layer, also supports high-level 3D APIs such as OpenGL, HOOPS and PHIGs. Intel is said to be interested in supporting games and virtual reality applications. Several semiconductor vendors are participating in both the VAGI and 3DRender standards, including 3Dlabs. In addition to ATI, other companies participating in 3DRender specs include Cirrus Logic, S-MOS Systems, S3, Tseng Labs, Weitek and Western Digital.

On the VL-bus front, indications at Comdex as expected were that despite the release of a Version 2.0, system manufacturers are favoring PCI bus implementations. Although companies such as Elite Group, for example, have recently expressed support for a 64-bit buffered version of the VL-bus to compete with PCI, vendors committing to VESA VL-bus 2.0 have been scarce; Advanced Logic Research Inc. is among the few with a 2.0-based system.

Mr. Vouri said “I don’t have a problem with PCI being the local bus of choice for volume manufacturers building Pentium systems if that serves their purpose. It’s about solving problems not religious wars.” He added that although VL-bus 1.0 had been offered in both buffered and non-buffered versions, most companies had chosen to seize upon unbuffered designs hooking directly to CPUs because it was cheapest and quickest implementation.

PCI has now gained momentum among non-Intel architectures such as PowerPC and Digital Equipment Corp.’s Alpha because the buffered design supports other platforms. Still, VL-bus has become a defacto I/O bus for the Mips architecture, although Mips licensees such as Toshiba and NEC are working on PCI bridge chipsets (EN, Nov. 22, 1993).

Mr. Vouri, also president of Binar Graphics inc. San Rafael, Calif., said a VL-bus 2.0 implementation for the PowerPC was still a good possibility.

Micron Electronics, Inc.,  (Nasdaq:MUEI), a leading direct manufacturer of award-winning PCs and services, announced Tuesday the execution of a non-binding letter of intent to acquire Micron Internet Services, a division of the Company’s parent corporation, Micron Technology, Inc., (NYSE:MU). Micron Internet Services offers dedicated, dialup, and broadband Internet access, VPN solutions and e-commerce services to small and medium-sized businesses, public organizations, and consumers throughout an expanding area. Micron Internet Services has received Cisco’s Powered Network status. Cisco’s Powered Network program enables customers to easily identify service providers that will deliver the high level of interoperability and performance, as well as new, advanced, and differentiated services they require. If the transaction is consummated, Micron Electronics will acquire the assets of Micron Internet Services at book value. The transaction is subject to execution of a definitive agreement and approval by Micron Electronics’ Board of Directors.

“The acquisition of Micron Internet Services, an award-winning ISP, is another important building block in our strategy to deliver a full suite of premier e-services to the mid-market,” said Joel Kocher, chairman and chief executive officer for Micron Electronics, Inc.

Three weeks ago, Micron Electronics announced a non-binding letter of intent to acquire HostPro, a leading Internet content and applications hosting company based in LA.

“We are thrilled at the prospect of joining Micron Electronics’ team,” stated Brook Gore, general manager of Micron Internet Services. “Their market reach, large customer base, and experience combined with our expertise and Internet service offerings will allow us to rapidly deploy Internet solutions to small and medium-sized businesses nationwide.”

Micron Electronics also announced that the Company and Micron Technology have entered into a non-binding memorandum of understanding to extend and modify their current Component Recovery Agreement. Under the Component Recovery Agreement, previously scheduled to expire September 2, 1999, Micron Technology is required to deliver to the Company components used in connection with the SpecTek memory products division. The term of the Component Recovery Agreement would be extended for two years, with Micron Technology having an option to purchase the SpecTek business at book value at the commencement of fiscal 2001. Pricing for components would be negotiated quarterly, with anticipated increases in pricing over the course of the extended term. Micron Technology’s agreement to sell the Micron Internet Services assets to the Company at book value is given in partial consideration for the Company’s agreeing to the proposed modifications to the Component Recovery Agreement. Additional details concerning this memorandum of understanding are included in the Company’s Form 10-Q, which was recently filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Micron Internet Services provides integrated Information systems solutions encompassing data, video, voice and software applications using the latest and increasingly cost effective Internet communication techniques. Micron Internet Services, providing Internet service commercially since 1994, is a division of Micron Technology, Inc. Micron Technology, Inc., and its subsidiaries manufacture and market DRAMs, very fast SRAMs, Flash, other semiconductor components, memory modules, graphics accelerators, personal computer systems.

Imperial Technology, the company accelerating application performance, announced today that Nissho Electronics, Japan’s largest Systems Integrator with 800 employees, will be reselling Imperial MegaRam and SANaccelerator zero latency solid state storage accelerators.

“We’re very excited to include Nissho Electronics as a premier member of our growing number of strategic channel partners,” said Robert David, CEO and President, Imperial Technology. “Part of our growth strategy is to identify capable and proven organizations that have an established presence and solid reputation. In Japan, I can’t imagine a more capable company than Nissho.”

Founded in 1969, Nissho Electronics has 800 employees in 16 offices with total revenues of Y57 Billion (FY2001). Nissho specializes in the telecommunications, Internet, Imaging, and Multimedia markets and provides a broad spectrum of Computer systems, peripherals, and software solutions. Nissho’s many customers include Japanese powerhouses such as NEC, Fujitsu, NTT, Mitsui Sumitomo Bank, Nomura Securities, MITI, Honda, Toyota, Sony, Toshiba, Japan telecom, and Hitachi. The company is well known in Japan for providing best of breed products and services from around the world.

“Imperial’s MegaRam and SANaccelerator zero latency storage accelerators will be of significant benefit to many Japanese companies,” said Taka Ishizu, General Manager, Nissho Electronics. “Nothing works quicker to eliminate poor application performance and I/O bottlenecks.”

Imperial’s MegaRam SSD’s and SANaccelerator solutions eliminate bottlenecks in DAS, SAN, and NAS environments by providing access to data hundreds of times faster than conventional rotating disk drives. These devices act as superchargers for application performance, increasing transaction rate for small block transfers commonly seen in database environments with the expense of rewriting applications or upgrading to faster servers. The systems are easily partitioned and managed through SAN Access, Imperial’s LUN Security software, to take advantage of SAN-based heterogeneous server connectivity. Adding an Imperial solid state solution to a storage infrastructure can often increase application performance by 200-400%.