VIA Technologies
VIA Technologies, Inc. (Chinese: 威盛電子; pinyin: Wēishèng Diànzǐ) is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and memory. It was 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.
Company type
VIA is also the parent company of VIA Labs Inc. (VLI, Chinese: 威鋒電子). As an independently-traded subsidiary,[3] VLI develops and markets USB 3, USB 4, USB Type-C, and USB PD controllers for computer peripherals and mobile devices.[4]
History[edit]
The company was founded in 1987, in Fremont, California, USA by Cher Wang. In 1992, it was decided to move the headquarters to Taipei, Taiwan in order to establish closer partnerships with the substantial and growing IT manufacturing base in Taiwan and neighbouring China.[5]
In 1999, VIA acquired most of Cyrix, then a division of National Semiconductor. That same year, VIA acquired Centaur Technology from Integrated Device Technology, marking its entry into the x86 microprocessor market. VIA is the maker of the VIA C3, VIA C7 & VIA Nano 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.
On 29 August 2008, VIA announced that they would release official 2D accelerated Linux drivers for their chipsets, and would also release 3D accelerated drivers.[6]
In July 2008, VIA Labs, Inc. (VLI) was founded as a wholly-owned subsidiary of VIA Technologies Inc. (VIA) to develop and market integrated circuits primarily for USB 3.0. VLI was intended to be a "smaller and thus more agile" company that can quickly respond to the changing market.[4] It would later become an independently-traded subsidiary in 2020.[7][8]
In 2013, VIA entered into an agreement with the Shanghai Municipal Government to create a fabless semiconductor company called Zhaoxin.[9] The joint venture is producing x86 compatible CPUs for the Chinese market.[10]
In November 2021, Intel recruited some of the employees of the Centaur Technology division from VIA, a deal worth $125 million, and effectively acquiring the talent and knowhow of the x86 division.[11][12] VIA retained the x86 licence and associated patents, and its Zhaoxin CPU joint-venture continues.[13]
Legal issues[edit]
On the basis of the Integrated Device Technology Centaur Technology acquisition,[15] VIA appeared to have come into possession of at least three patents, which covered 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.