3Dlabs was a

fabless semiconductor company Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclu ...

. It was founded in 1994 with headquarters in

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popu ...

. It originally developed the GLINT and PERMEDIA high-end

graphics chip A video display controller or VDC (also called a display engine or display interface) is an integrated circuit which is the main component in a video-signal generator, a device responsible for the production of a TV video signal in a computing ...

technology, that was used on many of the world's leading

computer graphics Computer graphics deals with generating images with the aid of computers. Today, computer graphics is a core technology in digital photography, film, video games, cell phone and computer displays, and many specialized applications. A great de ...

cards in the

CAD Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computers (or ) to aid in the creation, modification, analysis, or optimization of a design. This software is used to increase the productivity of the designer, improve the quality of design, improve c ...

and DCC markets, including its own Wildcat and Oxygen cards. In 2006 the company focused development efforts on its emerging media processing business, and in 2009 became the

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

-based

ZiiLABS ZiiLABS is a global electronics company, producing a line of media-oriented application processors, reference platforms and enabling software, in a series of platforms named ZMS. Its products are found in low-power consumer electronics and embedded ...

History

3Dlabs was formed from a management buy-out of Dupont Pixel Systems in the UK in April 1994 and went public on

Nasdaq The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

in October 1996. 3Dlabs acquired

Dynamic Pictures {{Citation style, date=October 2019 Dynamic Pictures Inc. was a San Jose-based company which produced the Oxygen line of high-end 3D graphics cards. In 1997, they produced three PCI-based models: the Oxygen 102, Oxygen 202, and Oxygen 402. The Oxy ...

in July 1998 and the Intense3D division of

Intergraph Intergraph Corporation was an American software development and services company, which now forms part of Hexagon AB. It provides enterprise engineering and geospatially powered software to businesses, governments, and organizations around the ...

in July 2000. It was itself acquired by

Creative Labs Creative Technology Ltd. is a Singaporean multinational technology company headquartered with overseas offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Dublin, and Silicon Valley (where in the US it is known as Creative Labs). The principal activities of the compa ...

in June 2002. In February 2006, 3Dlabs announced that it would stop developing professional 3D graphic chips and focus on embedded and mobile media processors. 3Dlabs was an early pioneer in bringing 3D graphics to the PC. Its GLINT 300SX graphics processor was the industry's first single chip, 3D-capable graphics device that was shipped on graphics boards from multiple vendors. Gamma was the first single chip graphics geometry processor for the PC. Permedia was the first low-cost

OpenGL OpenGL (Open Graphics Library) is a cross-language, cross-platform application programming interface (API) for rendering 2D and 3D vector graphics. The API is typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardwa ...

accelerator chip. 3Dlabs was a member of the OpenGL Architecture Review Board and played an important role in the development of OpenGL 2.0 and ongoing evolution of the OpenGL API. The new media processor business was developed out of the original UK R&D center with most of the workstation graphics teams that came from Intense3D and Dynamic Pictures having been hired by Intel and NVIDIA. In November 2006 3Dlabs introduced the DMS-02, its first media processor capable of 720P HD Video for portable devices. In January 2009 the SoC team merged with a Creative product division and rebranded as

, It claimed the new company was to offer processors and complete market-ready hardware and software platforms to consumer OEMs and ODMs.

Media processors

The ZMS processors are based on a low-power multicore architecture including dual ARM cores for handling traditional CPU tasks plus a closely coupled, fully programmable

SIMD Single instruction, multiple data (SIMD) is a type of parallel processing in Flynn's taxonomy. SIMD can be internal (part of the hardware design) and it can be directly accessible through an instruction set architecture (ISA), but it shoul ...

array processor to do the heavy lifting for intensive media processing tasks such as;

2D graphics 2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital images—mostly from two-dimensional models (such as 2D geometric models, text, and digital images) and by techniques specific to them. It may refer to the branch of computer s ...

3D graphics 3D computer graphics, or “3D graphics,” sometimes called CGI, 3D-CGI or three-dimensional computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data (often Cartesian) that is stored in the computer for th ...

, video decode/encode,

image processing An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensio ...

and floating point ( 32-bit IEEE). The processors integrate on-chip peripherals and interfaces suitable for a broad range of handheld and embedded devices. Originally developed under the 3Dlabs name, the processor-related products are now sold and supported by

Graphics card listing

These are cards which were supplied by 3DLABS. Drivers and limited support for these products can be found at: https://web.archive.org/web/20080227235127/http://www.3dlabs.com/content/legacy/ Chips: * 3Dlabs Permedia 2 * 3Dlabs Permedia NT (Permedia + GLINT Delta) * 3Dlabs Permedia * 3Dlabs GLINT GMX - GMX 1000 (Gamma + MX), GMX 2000 (Gamma + 2xMX) * 3Dlabs GLINT Gamma (geometry processor) * 3Dlabs GLINT DMX - DMX 1000 (Delta + MX), DMX 2000 (Delta + 2xMX) * 3Dlabs GLINT Delta (triangle setup processor) * 3Dlabs GLINT MX * 3Dlabs GLINT 500TX * 3Dlabs GLINT 300SX Boards: * Wildcat Realizm series - consists of Vertex/Scalability Units (VSU), Visual Processing Units (VPU) ** (2005) 3Dlabs Wildcat Realizm 800 - 1 VSU, 2 VPU, 512 + 128 MB GDDR3, 512-bit memory interface, x16 PCIe ** (2005) 3Dlabs Wildcat Realizm 500 - 1 VPU, 256 MB GDDR3, 256-bit memory interface, x16 PCIe, ** (2004) 3Dlabs Wildcat Realizm 200 - 1 VPU, 512 MB GDDR3, 256-bit memory interface, AGP x8 ** (2004) 3Dlabs Wildcat Realizm 100 - 1 VPU, 256 MB GDDR3, 256-bit memory interface, AGP x8 * Wildcat VP (Visual Processing) Series - based on P10 and P9 chips: ** (2003) 3Dlabs Wildcat VP990 Pro - P10, 512 MB RAM, AGP x8 ** (2003) 3Dlabs Wildcat VP880 Pro - P10, 256 MB RAM, AGP x8 ** (2002) 3Dlabs Wildcat VP970 - P10, 128 MB RAM, AGP x8 ** (2002) 3Dlabs Wildcat VP870 - P10, 128 MB RAM, AGP x8 ** (2002) 3Dlabs Wildcat VP760 - P10, 64 MB RAM, AGP x8 ** (2003) 3Dlabs Wildcat VP560 - P9, 64 MB RAM, AGP x8 * Wildcat4 Series: ** (2003) 3Dlabs Wildcat4 7210 - 256 MB texture memory and 128 MB frame buffer, AGP Pro 50 x8 ** (2003) 3Dlabs Wildcat4 7110 - 128 MB texture memory and 128 MB frame buffer, AGP Pro 50 x8 * Wildcat III Series: ** (2002) 3Dlabs Wildcat III 6210 - 256 MB texture memory and 128 MB frame buffer, AGP Pro 50 ** (2002) 3Dlabs Wildcat III 6110 - 128 MB texture memory and 64 MB frame buffer, AGP Pro 50 * Wildcat II Series: ** (2001) 3Dlabs Wildcat II 5110 - 64 MB texture memory and 64 MB frame buffer, AGP Pro 50 x4 ** (2001) 3Dlabs Wildcat II 5000 - 32 MB texture memory and 32 MB frame buffer * 3Dlabs Oxygen GVX420 - 2xGLINT R4 + GLINT Gamma G2 + 128 MB SGRAM * 3Dlabs Oxygen GVX1 Pro - GLINT R4 + GLINT Gamma G2 + 64 MB SDRAM + DVI-I * (2000) 3Dlabs Oxygen GVX210 - 2xGLINT R3 + GLINT Gamma G2 + 64 MB SGRAM * 3Dlabs Oxygen GVX1 - GLINT R3 + GLINT Gamma G1 + 32 MB SDRAM, PCI and AGP version available * 3Dlabs Oxygen VX1 - GLINT R3 + 32 MB SDRAM * 3Dlabs Oxygen VX1-16 - GLINT R3 + 16 MB SDRAM * 3Dlabs Oxygen VX1 Stereo - GLINT R3 + 32 MB SDRAM + CrystalEyes * 3Dlabs Oxygen VX1 1600SW - GLINT R3 + 32 MB SDRAM + LVDS connector (for use with the SGI 1600SW flat panel) * 3Dlabs Permedia3 Create! - Permedia3 * 3Dlabs Oxygen GMX - a GMX 2000 based card * 3Dlabs Oxygen RPM - dual RPM based card * 3Dlabs Oxygen ACX - a Permedia 2 based card Intergraph Intense3D Pro 2200 PCI

Acquired with Intense3D: * Intense3D Wildcat 4210 * Intense3D Wildcat 4110 * Intense3D Wildcat 4105 * Intense3D Wildcat 4000 * Intense3D Wildcat 3510 * Intense 3D Pro 3600 * Intense 3D Pro 3400 * Intense 3D Pro 2200S * Intense 3D Pro 2200 * Intense 3D Pro 1000 Acquired with Dynamic Pictures Inc.: * Dynamic Pictures Oxygen 102, 202, 402 * Dynamic Pictures V192 Before

ATI Ati or ATI may refer to: * Ati people, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines **Ati language (Philippines), the language spoken by this people group ** Ati-Atihan festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines *Ati language (China), a ...

acquired the

FireGL AMD FirePro was AMD's brand of graphics cards designed for use in workstations and servers running professional Computer-aided design (CAD), Computer-generated imagery (CGI), Digital content creation (DCC), and High-performance computing/GPG ...

team in 2001, Diamond Multimedia used 3Dlabs chipsets for some of their

cards.

Newer Technology Newer Technology is an American technology company headquartered in Woodstock, Illinois, that designs and manufactures accessories primarily for Apple, Inc. products. History Founded in 1988 Newer Technology initially focused on manufacturing c ...

sold the RenderPix cards based on the 500TX + Glint Delta for the Macintosh. Formac also made a number of Macintosh graphics cards using Permedia 1, 2, and 3 chipsets.

References

External links

*
3Dlabs homepage support legacy graphics cards
{{Intel Graphics hardware companies Fabless semiconductor companies Intel graphics Defunct semiconductor companies of the United States Companies formed by management buyout 2002 mergers and acquisitions 1994 establishments in California 2009 disestablishments in California Electronics companies established in 1994 Electronics companies disestablished in 2009 Manufacturing companies based in San Jose, California Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq Creative Technology acquisitions

History

Media processors

Graphics card listing

See also

References

External links