VIA Technologies

VIA Technologies (or VIA ) is a manufacturer Taiwan board of integrated circuits (mainly of the Chipset S of mother charts, CPU, and memories) which makes party of the Group Formosa Plastics. It is the largest manufacturer independent of chipsets of mother charts. As a company without factory working in the Semiconductor S, VIA its research and development of chipsets itself undertakes, then sub-contracted the part manufacture (silicon) at third foundries (like TSMC).

History

The company was founded in 1987 starting from the company Symphony of the Silicon Valley by Wen Chi Chen inter alia (陳文琦). He worked for Intel before joining Symphony, and is from now on the chairman of this last company. Chen transferred the employees from Symphony to Taiwan to begin the production of microprocessors.

In 1992, the general headquarter was moved with Taipei in Taiwan.

In 1996, VIA played a big role in the group of standardization PC Common Architecture, by publishing the switch of the Bus ISA with the Bus NCV.

In 1999, the company took possession of Cyrix (which made then party of National Semiconductor) and also of Centaur of Integrated Device Technology, marking then entered on the market of the microprocessors of architecture x86. VIA is the manufacturer of the processors VIA C3 and VIA C7 and of the platform EPIA.

In 2001, VIA establishes its subsidiary company S3 Graphics.

In January 2005, VIA the production of the 100 millionth chipset AMD celebrated VIA.

Products

Whereas VIA lack of notoriety compared with other suppliers of chipset (like ATI, Intel or NVIDIA), some of the chips from VIA flower in a large variety of PC. The market of VIA concentrates on the integrated circuits for the PC intended for the general public, VIA is most known for its chipsets of mother charts (core-logic?). However, the products of VIA include/understand audio controllers, controllers networks, processors of low power, and even of the chipsets of engraver CD/DVD. The salesmen of PC and peripherals as ASUS buy then the chipsets to include them in their own brands of products.

At the end of the years 1990, VIA the diversification of its markets core-logic started, and the company, since, made acquisitions of market to form a section CPU, a section graphics and a section for the sound. Since the industry of silicon continues to improve, the level of integration and the functionalities of the chipsets, these three sections will not be useless with VIA in the future so that it remains competitive on this market.

Chipsets of mother chart

See too

VIA C3
VIA C7
VIA Envy

External bonds

official Taiwanese Site

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