VIA Technologies

VIA Technologies Inc.
威盛電子

Type	Public (TWSE: 2388)[2]
Industry	Computer hardware
Founded	1987
Headquarters	Taipei, Taiwan, ROC
Products	Chipsets, motherboards, CPUs
Website	VIA.com.tw

VIA Technologies Inc. (TWSE: 2388) is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and memory, and is part of the Formosa Plastics Group. It is the world's largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets. 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

In 1983, the firm was founded from the Symphony Company in Silicon Valley by Wen Chi Chen (陳文琦), among others. He was employed at Intel before joining Symphony, and is still CEO of Symphony. Chen transferred the employees of Symphony to Taiwan, to start chip production. VIA stands for "Very Innovative Architecture".

In 1997, the headquarters were moved to Taipei, Taiwan.

In 1992, VIA took a major part in the PC Common Architecture standard group, pushing the move from the ISA bus to the PCI bus.

In 1998, VIA acquired most of Cyrix, then a division of National Semiconductor, and also Integrated Device Technology's Centaur, marking its entry into the x86 microprocessor market. VIA is the maker of the VIA C3 and VIA C7 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.

In 29 August 2008, VIA announced that they were releasing official 2D accelerated Linux drivers for their chipsets, and would also release 3D accelerated drivers.

Products

A VIA USB PHY on a Rosewill branded PCI USB 2.0 Desktop Expansion card

VIA's business focuses on integrated chipsets for the PC market. Among PC users, VIA is 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 buy the chipsets for inclusion into their own product brands.

In the late 1990s, VIA began diversifying its core-logic business, and the company has since made business acquisitions to form 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 will need these divisions to remain competitive in the core-logic market.

Audio Circuits

Circuit	Sampling rate		Resolution
	Digital	Analog	Digital	Analog
VT1613	96 kHz	96 kHz	20-bit	20-bit
VT1618	96 kHz	96 kHz	20-bit	20-bit
VT1708B	96 kHz	192 kHz	24-bit	24-bit

Processors

Series	Model	Core	Frequency [MHz]	Front Side Bus [MHz]	Year	Process [nm]	Die size [mm^2]	Power [W]	L2 Cache [K]	L1 I/D Cache [K]	Performance [SPEC2000]
Eden	Eden ESP	Samuel 2	300-600	66/100/133	2001	150	35x35	2.5-6	64	64/64
	Eden ESP	Nehemiah	667-1000	133/200	2003-2004	130	35x35	6-7	64	64/64
	Eden-N	Nehemiah	533-1000	133	2003	130	15x15	2.5-7	64	64/64
	Eden	Esther	400-1500	400-800	2006-2007	90	30	<7.5	128	32/32
	Eden X2	?	800	?	2011	40	11x6	?	?
C3	C3	Samuel 2	667-800	100-133	2001	150		13	64	64/64
	C3	Ezra	800-1000	100-133	2002	130		8.3-10	64	64/64
	C3	Nehemiah	1000-1400	133-200	2003	130	35x35	15-21	64	64/64
	C3-M	Nehemiah	1000-1400	133-200	2003	130	35x35	11-19	64	64/64
C7	C7-D	Esther	1500-1800	400	2006	90	21x21	20-25	128	16/16
	C7-M	Esther	1000-2000	400	2005	90	21x21	12-20	128	16/16
	C7	Esther	1500-2000	800	2007	90	21x21	12-20	128	16/16
PV530	PV530	Esther	1800	800	?	90	21x21	?	128	64/64?
Nano	Nano	Isaiah	1000-1800	533-800	2008	65	8x8	5-25	1024	64/64
	Nano X2	Isaiah	1200+	800	2011	40	11x6	13	2x 1024	2x 64/64	955/891 17.1/14.5 rate
QuadCore	QuadCore	Isaiah	1200+	1333	2011	40	2x 11x6	27.5	4x 1024	4x 64/64	30.1/24.1 rate
Series	Model	Core	Frequency [MHz]	Front Side Bus [MHz]	Year	Process [nm]	Die size [mm^2]	Power [W]	L2 Cache [K]	L1 I/D Cache [K]	Performance [SPEC2000]

Chipsets

VX900

• Supported Processors

• VIA Nano™, VIA Nano 3000 Series™, VIA C7®-M processor, VIA Eden™ processors
• V4 protocol supporting 800/533/400MHz FSB

• Memory Controller

• Supports up to two unbuffered 32/64-bit DIMMs
• DDR3 1066MHz / DDR2 667

• Unified Video Decoding Processor

• WMV / VC1 Video Decoding Mode

• VC-1 SP/MP/AP up to level 3.0
• Accelerates AP@L3 from VLD or iDCT
• De-blocking filtering
• Adaptive macroblock quantization

• H.264 Decode Mode

• Accelerates MP@L4.1 H.264 Stream from VLD level
• Multi-mode, multi-reference MC
• Interlaced frame / MBAFF decoding
• CAVLC and CABAC support
• Inner loop de-block filter
• BP/MP/HP (CABAC or CAVLC) up to level 4.1

• MPEG-2 decoding mode

• Fully compatible ISO/IEC spec in main profile
• Supports VLD

• MPEG-4 Decoding Mode

• Supports MPEG4
• MPEG4 ASP Level 5
• XVID
• Interlaced frame decoding
• Supports 1/4 –pixel MC

• High Definition Audio Interface

• Up to 32-bit sample depth at 192 kHz sampling rate
• Supports three independent codecs streams
• Supports jack sensing and retasking

• Integrated 2D Graphics Processor

• 128-bit 2D engine with hardware rotation capability
• High Definition video processor with VMR capability
• Up to 256 MB frame buffer

• Integrated 3D Graphics Processor

• 250MHz engine clock
• VIA Chrome9 HC3 – programmable DirectX 9 graphics engine
• 128-bit DX9 graphics engine with 2PS and 2VS
• Internal full ARGB for high rendering quality

• Display Support

• Dedicated CRT interface
• Single channel LVDS transmitter
• DVP1 to external HDMI/LVDS/DVI transmitter and TV encoder
• Multiplexed interface for DisplayPort/HDMI
• Multiplexed interface for DisplayPort/PCI Express
• Supports DuoView+ dual image capability

• Video Capture Port

• Parallel and serial Transport Stream inputs
• Supports 8-bit or 16-bit CCIR656/601 input
• External Hsync / Vsync support
• Supports HD resolution up to 1080i 60 or 1080p 30

• Storage and Peripheral Interface

• 2 SATA 2.0 interface
• Support SD/MMC/MS/MS pro memory card interface
• Supports PCI-Express one 4-lane and two 1-lane ports
• Supports eight USB 2.0 ports
• Supports PCI and LPC buses
• Supports SDIO and SPI
• Supports four UART ports

• Power Management

• ACPI 3.0 and PCI Bus Power Management 1.1 compliant
• Extensive system power management

VN1000

• Processor Support

• VIA Nano, VIA C7, C7-D and Eden™ (V4) processors

• PowerSaver™ Support

• Yes

• VIA V4 Bus

• 400/800 MHz

• Memory Support

• DDR2 677/800 and DDR3 800/1066

• Max Memory

• 16GB

• PCI Express

• One 8-lane, four 1-lane

• North/South Bridge Link

• Ultra V-Link (1GB/s)

• Graphics Core

• VIA Chrome 520

• DirectX Graphics

• DirectX10.1

• Video Acceleration

• H.264, WMV, MPEG-2, MPEG-4

• HDTV support

• Yes – HTDV resolutions inc 1080p, 1080i and 720P

• Multi-Display Support

• Yes – including dual HDMI DisplayPort and LVDS

Market trends

VIA established itself as important supplier of PC components with its chipsets for Socket 7 platform. With the Apollo VP3 chipset VIA pioneered AGP support for Socket 7 processors.. VIA's present market position derives from the success of its Pentium III chipsets. Intel discontinued the development of its SDRAM chipsets, and stated as policy that only RAMBUS memory would be supported going forward. Since RAMBUS 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.

While historically VIA chipsets had suffered compatibility and performance issues, especially regarding AGP implementations^{[citation needed]}, an internal program to raise standards had also begun, and VIA's fast and stable mature chipsets found market appeal, and profits soared. Many companies that had previously maintained Intel-only buying policies placed volume orders with VIA. Intel eventually restarted SDRAM development, and produced the 815 chipset, with 133 MHz SDRAM support and a 133 MHz Front Side Bus CPU interface. As NVIDIA came out with the powerful nForce2 chipset for the Athlon, VIA's market share started to decline. At the same time, VIA benefited from AMD's popular Athlon processor, for which VIA sold millions of chipsets.

In response to increasing market competition, VIA decided to buy out the ailing S3 Graphics business. While the Savage chipset was not fast enough to survive as a discrete solution, its low manufacturing cost made it an ideal integrated solution, as part of the VIA northbridge. Under VIA, the S3 brand has generally held onto a 10% share of the PC graphics market, behind Intel, ATI, and NVIDIA. VIA also includes the VIA Envy soundcard on its motherboards, which offers 24-bit sound.

While its Pentium 4 chipset designs have struggled to win market share, in the face of legal threats from Intel, the K8T800 chipset for the Athlon 64 has been popular.

VIA has also continued the development of its VIA C3 and VIA C7 processors, targeting small, light, low power applications, a market space in which VIA is successful. 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.

Legal issues

On the basis of the IDT Centaur acquisition, VIA appears to have come into possession of at least three patents, which cover 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.

See also

• Mini-ITX
• Pico-ITX
• Nano-ITX
• NanoBook
• List of VIA chipsets
• List of VIA microprocessors
• List of VIA Nano microprocessors

External links

• VIA Technologies (Taiwan)
• VIA Arena Homepage
• The 100 Millionth VIA AMD Chipset
• Linux on laptops and notebooks with VIA CPU
• Chrome-Center
• viagallery.com's photostream
• Palm-sized ZOTAC ZBOX Featuring VIA Nano X2
• ZOTAC ZBOX Nano Performance: VIA vs. AMD