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{{short description|Canadian technology corporation}}{{Use mdy dates|date=August 2018}}{{Use Canadian English|date=December 2022}}

factoids

K.Y. HoLee Ka Lau|Benny Lau}}AMD in 2006 and branding phased out in 2010Chief executive officer>CEO)Lee Ka Lau (former president) Francis LauSemiconductor industry>Semiconductors| products = Graphics processing unitsChipsetsVideo capture cardsUnited States dollar>USD (2005)United States dollar>USD (2005)| owner = | parent = AMD| homepage = weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20061008230707weblink">www.ati.com (Archived Oct 08, 2006)Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.Markham, Ontario>Markham, Ontario, Canada}}ATI Technologies Inc., commonly called ATI, was a Canadian semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985, the company listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by AMD in 2006. As a major fabrication-less or fabless semiconductor company, ATI conducted research and development in-house and outsourced the manufacturing and assembly of its products. With the decline and eventual bankruptcy of 3dfx in 2000, ATI and its chief rival Nvidia emerged as the two dominant players in the graphics processors industry, eventually forcing other manufacturers into niche roles.The acquisition of ATI in 2006 was important to AMD's strategic development of its Fusion generation of computer processors, which integrated general processing abilities with graphics processing functions within a chip. Since 2010, AMD's graphics processor products have ceased using the ATI brand name.WEB,weblink ATI to be re-branded as AMD – branding, ATI Radeon, ati, amd – ARN, Arnnet.com.au, August 30, 2010, February 19, 2011,

History

Lee Ka Lau,University of Toronto Division of University Advancement page {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081210144420weblink |date=December 10, 2008 }}. Retrieved February 28, 2008. Francis Lau, Benny Lau, and Kwok Yuen HoWEB,weblink Partner Resources, Ati.com, February 7, 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20021103215930weblink">weblink 23 November 2019, November 3, 2002, founded ATI in 1985 as Array Technology Inc.WEB,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20051211204408weblink">weblink dead, December 11, 2005, The Information Technology 100: 90: ATI Technologies, 2005, BusinessWeek, 2014-08-19, The company was incorporated in August 1985 as Array Technology Inc. and changed its name to Array Technologies Inc. in September 1985. Further, it changed its name to ATI Technologies Inc. in December 1985., Working primarily in the OEM field, ATI produced integrated graphics cards for PC manufacturers such as IBM and Commodore. By 1987, ATI had grown into an independent graphics-card retailer, introducing EGA Wonder and VGA Wonder card product lines that year.History of AMD at AMD.com. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012174217weblink|date=October 12, 2007}}. In the early nineties, they released products able to process graphics without the CPU: in May 1991, the Mach8, in 1992 the Mach32, which offered improved memory bandwidth and GUI acceleration. ATI Technologies Inc. went public in 1993, with shares listed on NASDAQ and on the Toronto Stock Exchange.(File:Atitechnologiessiliconvalley.jpg|thumb|right|250px|ATI's former Silicon Valley office at 4555 Great America Pkwy, Santa Clara, CA)File:ATI Hercules Card 1986.xcf|thumb|right|250px|ATI "Graphics Solution Rev 3" from 1985/1986, supporting Hercules graphics. As the PCB reveals, the layout dates from 1985, whereas the marking on the central chip CW16800-A says "8639"—meaning that chip was manufactured in week 39, 1986. Notice UM6845E CRT controller. This card uses the ISA 8-bit interface.]](File:ATI Wonder.jpg|thumb|250px|ATI VGA Wonder with 256 KB RAM)In 1994, the Mach64 accelerator debuted, powering the Graphics Xpression and Graphics Pro Turbo, offering hardware support for YUV-to-RGB colour space conversion in addition to hardware zoom; early techniques of hardware-based video acceleration.ATI introduced its first combination of 2D and 3D accelerator under the name 3D Rage. This chip was based on the Mach 64, but it featured elemental 3D acceleration. The ATI Rage line powered almost the entire range of ATI graphics products. In particular, the Rage Pro was one of the first viable 2D-plus-3D alternatives to 3dfx's 3D-only Voodoo chipset. 3D acceleration in the Rage line advanced from the basic functionality within the initial 3D Rage to a more advanced DirectX 6.0 accelerator in 1999 Rage 128.The All-in-Wonder product line, introduced in 1996, was the first combination of integrated graphics chip with TV tuner card and the first chip that enabled display of computer graphics on a TV set.History of AMD – 1996 at AMD.com. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012174217weblink|date=October 12, 2007}}. The cards featured 3D acceleration powered by ATI's 3D Rage II, 64-bit 2D performance, TV-quality video acceleration, analogue video capture, TV tuner functionality, flicker-free TV-out and stereo TV audio reception.ATI entered the mobile computing sector by introducing 3D-graphics acceleration to laptops in 1996. The Mobility product line had to meet requirements different from those of desktop PCs, such as minimized power usage, reduced heat output, TMDS output capabilities for laptop screens, and maximized integration. In 1997, ATI acquired Tseng Labs's graphics assets, which included 40 engineers.The Radeon line of graphics products was unveiled in 2000. The initial Radeon graphics processing unit offered an all-new design with DirectX 7.0 3D acceleration, video acceleration, and 2D acceleration. Technology developed for a specific Radeon generation could be built in varying levels of features and performance in order to provide products suited for the entire market range, from high-end to budget to mobile versions.In 2000, ATI acquired ArtX, which engineered the Flipper graphics chip used in the GameCube video game console. They also created a modified version of the chip (codenamed Hollywood) for the successor of the GameCube, the Wii. Microsoft contracted ATI to design the graphics core (codenamed Xenos) for the Xbox 360. Later in 2005, ATI acquired Terayon's cable modem silicon intellectual property, strengthening their lead in the consumer digital television market.press release {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050313181259weblink |date=March 13, 2005 }} K. Y. Ho remained as Chairman of the Board until he retired in November 2005. Dave Orton replaced him as the President and CEO of the organization.On July 24, 2006, a joint announcement revealed that AMD would acquire ATI in a deal valued at $5.6 billion.WEB,weblink U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, AMD 2008 10-K SEC Filling. Pg 105, 24 February 2009, 26 November 2011, The acquisition consideration closed on October 25, 2006,WEB,weblink Press Release, Ir.ati.com, February 19, 2011, December 26, 2008,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20081226134908weblink">weblink dead, and included over $2 billion financed from a loan and 56 million shares of AMD stock.WEB,weblink AMD page, Amd.com, February 10, 2011, February 19, 2011, ATI's operations became part of the AMD Graphics Product Group (GPG),WEB,weblink AMD 2007 Analyst Day page, Amd.com, February 19, 2011, and ATI's CEO Dave Orton became the Executive Vice President of Visual and Media Businesses at AMD until his resignation in 2007.WEB,weblink AMD 2006 December Analyst Day page, Amd.com, February 19, 2011, The top-level management was reorganized with the Senior Vice President and General Manager, and the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Consumer Electronics Group, both of whom would report to the CEO of AMD.WEB,weblink Corporate Information – Executive Biographies at, Amd.com, February 14, 2011, February 19, 2011, On 30 August 2010, John Trikola announced that AMD would retire the ATI brand for its graphics chipsets in favour of the AMD name.WEB,weblink AMD Decides to Drop the ATI Brand – Softpedia, News.softpedia.com, February 19, 2011,

Products

In addition to developing high-end GPUs (originally called a VPU, visual processing unit, by ATI) for PCs and Apple Macs, ATI also designed embedded versions for laptops (Mobility Radeon), PDAs and mobile phones (Imageon), integrated motherboards (Radeon IGP), and others."Ruby", a fictional female character described as a "mercenary for hire", was created by ATI to promote some of its products.WEB,weblink Ruby's Headquarters at, Ati.de, January 15, 2011, February 19, 2011, Computer-animated videos produced by RhinoFX about Ruby on a mission (being a sniper, saboteur, hacker and so on) appeared at large technology shows such as CeBIT and CES.

Computer graphics chipsets

• Graphics Solution / "Small Wonder" – Series of 8-bit ISA cards with MDA, Hercules, CGA and Plantronics Color+ compatibility using the United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC) UM6845E CRT controller. Later versions added EGA support.
• EGA / VGA Wonder – IBM "EGA/VGA-compatible" display adapters (1987)
• Mach Series – Introduced ATI's first 2D GUI "Windows Accelerator". As the series evolved, GUI acceleration improved dramatically and early video acceleration appeared.
• Rage Series – ATI's first 2D and 3D accelerator chips. The series evolved from rudimentary 3D with 2D GUI acceleration and MPEG-1 capability, to a highly competitive Direct3D 6 accelerator with then "best-in-class" DVD (MPEG2) acceleration. The various chips were very popular with OEMs of the time. The Rage II was used in the first ATI All-In-Wonder multi-function video card, and more advanced All-In-Wonders based on Rage series GPUs followed. (1995–2004)
  • Rage Mobility – Designed for use in low-power environments, such as notebooks. These chips were functionally similar to their desktop counterparts but had additions such as advanced power management, LCD interfaces, and dual monitor functionality.
• Radeon Series – ATI launched the Radeon line in 2000, as their consumer 3D accelerator add-in cards, its flagship product line and the direct competitor to Nvidia's GeForce. The original Radeon DDR was ATI's first DirectX 7 3D accelerator, introducing their first hardware T&L engine. ATI often produced 'Pro' versions with higher clock speeds, and sometimes an extreme 'XT' version, and even more recently 'XT Platinum Edition (PE)' and 'XTX' versions. The Radeon series was the basis for many ATI All-In-Wonder boards.
  • Mobility Radeon – A series of power-optimized versions of Radeon graphics chips for use in laptops. They introduced innovations such as modularized RAM chips, DVD (MPEG2) acceleration, notebook GPU card sockets, and "PowerPlay" power management technology. AMD recently announced DirectX 11-compatible versions of its mobile processors.WEB,weblink AMD launches DirectX 11 graphics chips for laptops, January 8, 2010, techworld.com, January 8, 2010, August 20, 2014,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20140820020107weblink">weblink dead,
  • ATI CrossFire – This technology was ATI's response to NVIDIA's SLI platform. It allowed, by using a secondary video card and a dual PCI-E motherboard based on an ATI Crossfire compatible chipset, the ability to combine the power of the two, three or four video cards to increase performance through a variety of different rendering options. There is an option for additional PCI-E video card plugging into the third PCI-E slot for gaming physics, or another option to do physics on the second video card.WEB,weblink DailyTech report, Dailytech.com, February 19, 2011,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20110810024126weblink">weblink August 10, 2011, dead, mdy-all,
• FireGL/FirePro – Launched in 2001, following ATI's acquisition of FireGL Graphics from Diamond Multimedia. Workstation CAD/CAM video card, based on the Radeon series.
• FireMV – For workstations, featuring "multi-view", for multiple displays with 2D acceleration only, usually based on low-end products of the Radeon series (now integrated into FirePro series).

Although AMD strongly considered making the functional part of the ATI drivers "open source",WEB, Yager, Tom,weblink 'AMD talks about ATI' at, Infoworld.com, August 2, 2006, February 19, 2011, before the merger with AMD, ATI had no plans to release their graphics drivers as free software:

Personal computer platforms and chipsets

{{See also|Comparison of ATI chipsets}}

• IGP 3x0, Mobility Radeon 7000 IGP – ATI's first chipsets. Included a DirectX 7-level 3D graphics processor.
• 9100 IGP – 2nd generation system chipset. IXP250 southbridge. It was notable for being ATI's first complete motherboard chipset, including an ATI-built southbridge. It included an updated DirectX 8.1 class graphics processorGavrichenkov, Ilya. ATI RADEON 9100 IGP Integrated Chipset Review {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303203837weblink |date=March 3, 2016 }}, X-bit Labs, December 1, 2003.
• Xpress 200/200P – PCI Express-based Athlon 64 and Pentium 4 chipset. Supports SATA as well as integrated graphics with DirectX 9.0 support, the first integrated graphics chipset to do soWasson, Scott. ATI's Radeon Xpress 200 chipset {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070510231758weblink |date=May 10, 2007 }}, Tech Report, November 8, 2004.
• Xpress 3200 – similar to Xpress 200, but designed for optimal CrossFire performance.

In addition to the above chipset, ATI struck a deal in 2005, with CPU and motherboard manufacturers, particularly Asus and Intel, to create onboard 3D Graphics solutions for Intel's range of motherboards released with their range of Intel Pentium M-based desktop processors, the Intel Core and Intel Core 2 processors, the D101GGC and D101GGC2 chipset (codenamed "Grand County"weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20070116213811weblink">Intel Boxed Desktop Board Quick Guide (December 2006)) based on the Radeon Xpress 200 chipset. However, high-end boards with integrated graphics processor (IGP) still used Intel GMA integrated graphics processors. The deal with Intel ended with the purchase of ATI by AMD in 2006, with Intel announcing SiS IGP chipset (D201GLY chipset, codenamed "Little Valley") for entry-level desktop platform, replacing the "Grand County" series chipsets.

Multimedia and digital TV products

• All-in-Wonder series – A series of multimedia graphics cards which incorporating TV tuner and Radeon family graphics cards onto one add-in card,WEB, 2024-03-12, 2003-08-05, ATI Revolutionizes the Multimedia PC Experience with ALL-IN-WONDER 9600 PRO, hartware.de,weblink which, after being seemingly discontinued was relaunched as All-in-Wonder HD on June 26, 2008.
• TV tuners
  • TV Wonder and HDTV Wonder – a chipset family providing TV reception of various analogue TV and digital TV signals (PAL, NTSC, ATSC, DVB-T and so on) with first generation AVIVO technology, also supporting CableCARD, and Clear QAM technologies.
  • Theater – a family of QAM and VSB demodulators for the Digital Cable ready and ATSC environments.
• Remote Wonder, wireless remote control series for ATI multimedia products. Operates using radio frequency, away from mainstream implementations using infrared.

Console graphics products

• Flipper – The GameCube (codenamed "dolphin" during production) contains a 3D accelerator developed by ArtX, Inc, a company acquired by ATI during the development of the GPU.WEB, 2024-03-12, 2001-12-07, Hardware Behind the Consoles - Part II: Nintendo's GameCube Page 3, anandtech.com,weblink Flipper was similar in capability to a Direct3D 7 accelerator chip. It consisted of four rendering pipelines, with hardware T&L, and some limited pixel shader support. Innovatively the chip has 3 MB of embedded 1T-SRAM for use as ultra-fast low-latency (6.2 ns) texture and framebuffer/Z-buffer storage allowing 10.4 GB/second bandwidth (extremely fast for the time).WEB, 2024-03-12, 2001-12-07, Hardware Behind the Consoles - Part II: Nintendo's GameCube Page 5, anandtech.com,weblink Flipper was designed by members of the Nintendo 64 Reality Coprocessor team who moved from SGI. The Flipper team went on to have a major hand in the development of the Radeon 9700.
• Xenos – Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console contains a custom graphics chip produced by ATI, known as "R400", "C1", internally as "Crayola",WEB, Ex. 2050 - R400 Document Library FH - folder_history (PROTECTIVE ORDER) — IPR2015-00325 - LG Electronics, Inc. v. ATI Technologies ULC,weblink Unified Patents, 10 December 2021, 9 September 2015, or more often as Xenos. Some of these features include the embedded DRAM (eDRAM). The Xenos also features the “True Unified Shader Architecture” which dynamically loads and balances pixel and vertex processing amongst a bank of identically capable processing units.WEB, 2024-03-12, 2005-06-24, Microsoft's Xbox 360, Sony's PS3 - A Hardware Discussion, anandtech.com,weblink This differs greatly from PC graphics chips of previous generations that have separate banks of processors designed for their individual task (vertex/fragment). Another feature presented in Xenos is the hardware surface tessellation to divide a surface into smaller triangles,WEB, 2024-03-12, 2022-01-26, ATI’s Radeon 8500: First GPU With Hardware Tessellation, electronicdesign.com,weblink similar to TruForm in terms of functionality, which is an advanced feature as it is not presented even in the DirectX 10 specification. The recent generation Radeon R600 GPU core inherited most of the features presented in Xenos, except eDRAM.
• Hollywood – Successor to Flipper. Part of Nintendo's gaming console, Wii.WEB, 2024-03-12, 2009-03-11, AMD Ships 50 Millionth 'Hollywood' GPU In Wii, hothardware.com,weblink

Handheld chipsets

• Imageon – System-on-a-chip (SoC) design introduced in 2002, to bring integrated 2D and 3D graphics to handhelds devices, mobile phones and Tablet PCs. The Imageon 2298 included DVD quality recording and playback, TV output, and supported up to a 12-megapixel camera, with another line of Imageon products, the 2300 series supporting OpenGL ES 1.1+ extensions. The Imageon line was rebranded under AMD as Adreno, and sold to Qualcomm in 2009.
• Imageon TV – Announced in February 2006, allowing handhelds devices to receive digital broadcast TV (DVB-H) signals and enables watching TV programs on these devices, the chipset includes tuner, demodulator, decoder, and a full software stack, operates alongside the Imageon chip.

Besides full products, ATI also supplied 3D and 2D graphics components to other vendors, specifically the Qualcommpage 10 and 15. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070926060251weblink|date=September 26, 2007}}. MSM7000 series SoC chips of handheld and upcoming Freescale i. MX processorsDailyTech report. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160819220324weblink|date=August 19, 2016}}. Retrieved September 17, 2007. ATI claimed in May 2006, that it had sold over 100 millionWEB,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20070814093327weblink">weblink unfit, August 14, 2007, The Inquirer report, Theinquirer.net, February 19, 2011, 'cell phone media co-processors', significantly more than ATI's rival NVIDIA, and announced in February 2007, that the firm had shipped a total of 200 million of Imageon products since 2003.AMD press release. {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090315093128weblink|date=March 15, 2009}}. Retrieved July 27, 2007.After the AMD acquisition, the Imageon and Xilleon were sold off to Qualcomm and Broadcom, respectively.WEB, 2024-03-12, 2011-10-18, NVIDIA and Qualcomm ARM Up Against Competitors, bdti.com,weblink WEB, 2024-03-12, 2011-01-10, Coup at AMD: Why was Dirk Meyer Pushed Out?, brightsideofnews.com,weblink

High-performance computing

• ATI Firestream, using the stream processing concept, together with Close to Metal (CTM) hardware interface. After the AMD acquisition, it was succeeded by AMD FireStream in 2006, rebranded as AMD Stream Processor until 2012.NEWS,weblink AMD, AMD Delivers First Stream Processor with Double Precision Floating Point Technology, 8 November 2007, 12 February 2015, NEWS,weblink AnandTech, R.I.P: FireStream (2006 - 2012), 14 August 2012, 12 February 2015,

See also

• Comparison of ATI chipsets
• Comparison of ATI graphics processing units
• Fglrx – Linux display driver used for ATI video cards
• Radeon
• Video card
• Video-in video-out (VIVO)

Competing companies

• Nvidia
• Matrox
• 3dfx Interactive

References

{{Reflist|2}}

External links

{{Commons category|position=left|ATI Technologies}}

• ATI corporate milestones
• FiringSquad's History of ATI {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101220080038weblink |date=December 20, 2010 }}

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