Trident Microsystems
Encyclopedia
Trident Microsystems is a supplier of display-processors for flat panel displays (plasma, LCD, etc.). At one time, Trident was also a supplier of PC graphics chipsets and sound controllers.
Trio64V+, although the Trio64V+ outperformed the 9680 in true-color mode.
The rapid introduction of 3D-graphics caught many graphics suppliers off guard, including Trident. It was not until the late 1990s that Trident finally released a competitive chip, the TGUI-9880 (Blade3D.) By this time, Trident's reach had once again retreated to the low-end OEM market, where it was crowded by ATI
, S3
, and SiS
.
Meanwhile, in the laptop market, Trident was an early pioneer of embedded-DRAM
, a semiconductor manufacturing technique which combines a graphics-controller and framebuffer-RAM on a single chip. The resulting combo-chip saved precious board-space by eliminating several RAM chips normally required for framebuffer storage.
Although Trident enjoyed some success with its 3DImage and Blade3D product-lines, the entry of Intel into PC graphics signalled the end of the bottom-end, graphics-chip market. Trident partnered with motherboard chipset suppliers several times to integrate its graphics technology into a motherboard chipset (i.e. ALi
CyberALADDiN, VIA
MVP4), but these achieved marginal success. Faced with a contracting market and rising research and development costs (due to the increasing sophistication of 3D-graphics rendering), Trident announced in June, 2003, a substantial restructuring of the company.
In late 2003, XGI completed an acquisition of Trident's former graphics division.
In February 2010, Trident acquired the TV and STB
businesses of NXP Semiconductors
Desktop
Mobile
Integrated
History
Established in 1987, Trident (along with Oak Technologies) gained a reputation for selling inexpensive (for the time) but slow SVGA chipsets. Many OEMs built add-in-boards using Trident VGA chipsets. As the PC graphics market shifted from simple framebuffer displays (basic VGA colour monitor output) to more advanced hardware acceleration (multi-resolution, SVGA output; not to be confused with 3D hardware-acceleration), Trident continued its strategy of selling modestly performing chips at compelling pricepoints. In the mid-1990s, the company (briefly) caught up with its main competition: the TGUI-9680's feature-set was comparable to the S3 GraphicsS3 Graphics
S3 Graphics, Ltd is an American company specializing in graphics chipsets. Although they do not have the large market share that they once had, they still produce graphics accelerators for home computers under the "S3 Chrome" brand name.-History:...
Trio64V+, although the Trio64V+ outperformed the 9680 in true-color mode.
The rapid introduction of 3D-graphics caught many graphics suppliers off guard, including Trident. It was not until the late 1990s that Trident finally released a competitive chip, the TGUI-9880 (Blade3D.) By this time, Trident's reach had once again retreated to the low-end OEM market, where it was crowded by ATI
ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies Inc. was a semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, Canada, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985 as Array Technologies Inc., the company was listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by Advanced Micro...
, S3
S3 Graphics
S3 Graphics, Ltd is an American company specializing in graphics chipsets. Although they do not have the large market share that they once had, they still produce graphics accelerators for home computers under the "S3 Chrome" brand name.-History:...
, and SiS
Sis
- Places :* Sis * Sis, Armenia, a town* Sis, Azerbaijan, a village* Sis, Iran, a city* Kozan, Adana, Sis in Armenian* Mountains of Sis, a range of the Pre-Pyrenees- Other :...
.
Meanwhile, in the laptop market, Trident was an early pioneer of embedded-DRAM
EDRAM
eDRAM stands for "embedded DRAM", a capacitor-based dynamic random access memory integrated on the same die as an ASIC or processor. The cost-per-bit is higher than for stand-alone DRAM chips but in many applications the performance advantages of placing the eDRAM on the same chip as the processor...
, a semiconductor manufacturing technique which combines a graphics-controller and framebuffer-RAM on a single chip. The resulting combo-chip saved precious board-space by eliminating several RAM chips normally required for framebuffer storage.
Although Trident enjoyed some success with its 3DImage and Blade3D product-lines, the entry of Intel into PC graphics signalled the end of the bottom-end, graphics-chip market. Trident partnered with motherboard chipset suppliers several times to integrate its graphics technology into a motherboard chipset (i.e. ALi
Acer Laboratories Incorporated
Acer Laboratories Incorporated is a major designer and manufacturer of integrated circuits for the personal computer and embedded systems markets. It is a subsidiary of the Acer group....
CyberALADDiN, VIA
VIA Technologies
VIA Technologies 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...
MVP4), but these achieved marginal success. Faced with a contracting market and rising research and development costs (due to the increasing sophistication of 3D-graphics rendering), Trident announced in June, 2003, a substantial restructuring of the company.
In late 2003, XGI completed an acquisition of Trident's former graphics division.
In February 2010, Trident acquired the TV and STB
Set-top box
A set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...
businesses of NXP Semiconductors
Graphics chipsets
The following lists are not complete.Desktop
- TVGA 8200LX (1987)
- TVGA 8800 (1988) - first S/VGA compatible chipset (ISA), 512KB framebuffer
- 8800BR (512KB, 128KB banks only)
- 8800CS (512KB, 64KB banks + old/new mode support)
- TVGA 8900 - high-color (65,536) display-mode support, 1MB framebuffer
- 8900B (up to 1MB)
- 8900C (up to 1MB, SVGA, ISA)
- 8900CL (up to 2MB, SVGA, ISA/VLB. Slightly faster than earlier 8900 cards)
- 8900D (up to 2MB, 8900CL w/ bugs corrected)
- 8900DR (SVGA, ISA, max 1MB)
- TVGA 9000 - first integrated (VGA+RAMDAC) VGA chipset
-
- 9000 (low component version)
- 9000B (1992)
- 9000C (1992) - External RAMDAC
- 9000i - (rev. a/b/c, 512KB, 9000 w/ onchip 15/16bit DAC + clock gen)
- 9000i-1 (1994) - appeared on Trident's VC512TM ISAIndustry Standard ArchitectureIndustry Standard Architecture is a computer bus standard for IBM PC compatible computers introduced with the IBM Personal Computer to support its Intel 8088 microprocessor's 8-bit external data bus and extended to 16 bits for the IBM Personal Computer/AT's Intel 80286 processor...
video cards - 9100B - Slightly faster 9000
- TVGA 92xx, TVGA 938x, TVGA 94xx - first Windows accelerators
- 9200CXr
- 9380
- 9385
- 9388
- 9400CXi (max 2MB, truecolor, onchip 24bit DAC + clock gen)
- 9420DGi (PCI, 9400 w/ 2D acceleration [BitBLT, ...])
- 9430DGi (PCI, 9420 w/ hardware cursor)
- TGUI 9440 (1994) - first performance competitive Windows 2D-accelerator (2MB PCI/VLB)
-
- 9440AGi (PCI, 9430 w/ 16bit DAC interface + programmable clock)
- 9440-1
- 9440-3 - Unknown changes, differently designed Trident logo, rare
- 9460
- TVGA9470
- TGUI 966x - similar to 9440, 64-bit datapath
- 9660
- 9660XGi
- 968x - motion video accelerator (zoom + YUV->RGB, Directdraw overlay)
-
- 9680 - (64bit, 1-4MB, 9660 w/ video acceleration)
- 9680XGi
- 9682 (9680 with video in)
- 9683
- ProVidia 9685 (TV video out, UMA)
- 3DImage9750, 3DImage9850 - first Windows 3D-accelerators (4-8MB PCI/AGP)
- 3DImage 9750 (64bit, PCI/AGP, TV out)
- 3DImage 9753
- 9753WAVE (9753 + 32voice wavetable, 0.35ym, 208PQFP)
- 3DImage 9754
- 3DImage 9750DVD (9750 with DVD decoder)
- 9783
- 9785
- 3DImage 9850 (Faster 9750 core, AGP2X, AGP only)
- 3DImage 985DVD (DVD Acceleration)
- 3DImage 9850+ (Faster)
- 3DImage SME-GMA (Superscalar, Memory Enhanced, Graphics Mode Adaptability. Laptop graphics chip with 6MB embedded DRAM, smooth scaling for non-native resolutions and hardware MPEG2 decoding for DVD playback. Based on 9850+ Core.)
- Blade3D 9880 (1999) - first performance competitive Windows 3D-accelerators (8MB PCI/AGP)
- Blade3D Turbo 9880T - 135Mhz clockspeed, up from 110Mhz on the Blade 3D vanilla.
- Blade T16 9950 - little known
- Blade T64 9970 - dual-pixel quad-texture engine, AGP4X, 32MB of memory, 64-bit datapath
- Blade XP 9980 Same as T64 except 128-bit datapath, 200Mhz vs. 166Mhz
- XP4 - DirectX 8 chip.
- XP4E - AGP8x support.
- XP8 (cancelled) - DirectX 9 chip, marketed for under $100US.
- XP10 (cancelled) - PCI Express controller.
Mobile
- Cyber9320
- Cyber9382
- Cyber9385
- Cyber9397 and Cyber9397DVD
- 9525DVD
- CyberBlade
- CyberBlade Ai1
- CyberBlade e4-128
- CyberBlade i1
- CyberBlade i7
- Blade XP
- XP4
- XP4m16/XP4m32 - embedded memory.
- XP8 (cancelled) - DirectX 9 chip.
Integrated
- ALi CyberALADDiN-T
- ALi CyberALADDiN-P4 (CyberBLADE XP2)
- ? (codename Napa2T)
- ? (codename Napa2-P4)
- ? (codename Napa2-Banias)
Sound chipsets
- Trident 4DWAVE-DX/NX, based on the T² platform which is also used by SISSilicon Integrated SystemsSilicon Integrated Systems is a company that manufactures, among other things, motherboard chipsets. The company was founded in 1987 in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan.-Business:...
and ALiAcer Laboratories IncorporatedAcer Laboratories Incorporated is a major designer and manufacturer of integrated circuits for the personal computer and embedded systems markets. It is a subsidiary of the Acer group....
for their own audio interfaces. Supports Q3D 2.0.