NVIDIA

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**NVIDIA Corporation**

公司類型	上市公司 (纳斯达克 NVDA)
市場資料	{{{market_information}}}
成立時間	1993
總部地點	美国加利福尼亚州的圣克拉拉
郵政編號	{{{zip_code}}}
電話號碼	{{{telephone_no}}}
重要人物	黃仁勳, CEO
口號	The Way It's Meant to Be Played
產業	半导体
產品	显示芯片主板芯片组
資本金	{{{capital}}}
營業額	$2.375 Billion USD (2005)
稅前盈餘	{{{operating_income}}}
淨利	$302.5 Million USD (2005)
員工數	2,737 (2005)
結算期	{{{accounting_period}}}
母公司	{{{parent}}}
子公司	{{{subsid}}}
網站	www.nvidia.com
{{{footnotes}}}

nVIDIA公司，(NASDAQ: NVDA) (發音: IPA：/ɛnvɪdɪə/) 全称为nVIDIA Corporation，创立于1993年 1月，是一家以设计显示芯片和主板芯片组为主的半导体公司，总部设在美国加利福尼亚州的圣克拉拉。是一家無晶圓IC半導體設計公司(Fabless)。

在2000年，nVidia收購了3dfx。

[编辑] 歷史

Jen-Hsun Huang, Chris Malachowsky, and Curtis Priem founded the company in January 1993 and incorporated it in California in April 1993 (later re-incorporating it in Delaware). The company remained relatively low-key until the late 1997-1998 period, when it launched its line of RIVA PC graphics processors. It went public in January 1999 on Nasdaq; in May of that year it shipped its 10 millionth graphics processor. In 2000 it acquired the intellectual assets of one-time rival 3dfx, one of the biggest graphics companies of the mid to late 1990s. NVIDIA established close ties with many OEM companies as well as with organizations like SGI. By February 2002, NVIDIA had shipped 100 million graphics processors.

Today, NVIDIA and ATI Technologies (now acquired by AMD) supply the majority of "discrete" graphics chips found in most modern mainstream PCs. NVIDIA's flagship product, the GeForce line of graphics processors, first launched in 1999. Now, the Geforce brand-name has expanded to cover graphics technology in both desktop and mobile PC graphics chipsets. For the handheld device market, NVIDIA has the Goforce product line, which are high performance, low power graphics processors designed specifically for wireless devices.

As a fabless high-tech company, NVIDIA conducts research & development of chips in its laboratories, but subcontracts the actual (silicon) manufacturing to third-parties. In the past, NVIDIA has sourced silicon production capacity from IBM, STMicroelectronics, TSMC, and UMC. The supply chain of a chip involves multiple third-parties: the foundry makes processor wafers, the test-house tests the dies for defects and sorts them based on performance-characterization, and the packager seals individual dies in a hardened case. In terms of inventory management, NVIDIA must place foundry orders months in advance of their planned sale, then hold the produced chips in a warehouse until final delivery. This leads to occasional supply/demand imbalances.

It acquired a company focused on video software such as codecs for mobile devices^[1], PACE Soft Silicon in Pune, India, to increase its number of engineers in the country. ^[2]

It is currently in the process of acquiring San Jose based pioneer in portable multimedia semiconductor devices, PORTAL PLAYER Inc. ^[3]

[编辑] 主要产品

NVIDIA的產品組合包括繒圖處理器、無線通訊處理器、個人電腦平台(主版邏輯核心)晶片組和數碼媒體播放器的軟體。在Mac/PC使用者社群中，NVIDIA的"GeForce"產品線最為人熟悉。除了獨立型顯示卡外，還有Microsoft的Xbox遊戲核心和NForce主機板的核心技術。

在很多領域，NVIDIA和它的對手ATI很相似。因為兩間公司原本只注重PC市場，隨後擴展業務至非PC應用晶片。NVIDIA不銷售零售版顯示卡，但專注於研發的製造GPU。ATI和NVIDIA只會提供參考版(俗稱公版)給顯示卡製造商。很多顯示卡製造商只會根據公版的設計製造顯示卡，只有少數廠商會特別研發非公版顯示卡。

在2004年12月，NVIDIA宣佈會協助Sony設計PS3的繪圖處理器(RSX)。NVIDIA只會負責設計，Sony會負責製造該繪圖處理器。根據合約，NVIDIA會使用新力的晶元廠(新力和東芝)來製造RSX，並將製程提升至65納米。這與微軟的協議是互相違背的，因為NVIDIA會透過第三者製造Xbox的繪圖處理器。(其間微軟選擇了ATI去提供Xbox 360的繪圖硬體的IP設計。任天堂的GameCube和Wii亦採用ATI的繪圖處理器。)

"Discrete" refers to the graphic chip's boundary/proximity to other PC hardware. A discrete piece of hardware can be physically plugged/unplugged from the motherboard, the opposite term being "integrated graphics" where the piece of hardware is inseparable from the motherboard. In the PC graphics architecture, "discrete" means graphics-hardware is encapsulated in a dedicated (separate) chip. The chip's physical location, whether soldered on the motherboard PCB (as in most laptops) or mounted on an aftermarket add-in-board, has no bearing on this designation.

[编辑] 显示芯片

NV1 – NVIDIA的第一款產品，建基於二次曲面。
RIVA 128 and RIVA 128ZX – 支援DirectX 5和OpenGL 1, NVIDIA第一款支援DirectX的產品。
RIVA TNT, RIVA TNT2 – 支援DirectX 6和OpenGL 1, 這個顯示卡系列使NVIDIA成為市場領導者。
NVIDIA GeForce
- GeForce 256 – 支援DirectX 7, OpenGL 1, 硬體轉換與投影(T&L), 能使用DDR記憶體作為顯示記憶體。
- GeForce 2 – 支援DirectX 7和OpenGL 1
- GeForce 3 – 支援DirectX 8.0著色, OpenGL 1.2, 記憶體頻寬節省技術。
- GeForce 4 – 支援DirectX 8.1, OpenGL 1.4。低廉的MX系列只支援DirectX 7，因為它是建基於GeForce 2。
- GeForce FX – 支援DirectX 9和OpenGL 1.5，特色是可以呈現'電影級效果'。
- GeForce 6 – 支援DirectX 9C, OpenGL 2.0, 特色是一個改進了的著色引擎, 更節省電力的設計和SLI技術。
- GeForce 7 – 支援DirectX 9C, 'Windows Display Driver Model', OpenGL 2.0。這系列改進了著色效率，率先支援TSAA和TMAA抗鋸齒技術，亦支援SLI。
- GeForce 8 – 支援DirectX 9L和DirectX 10，採用統一管線結構。它是由頂點、幾何和像素著色引擎(統稱SM 4.0)組成。支援Luminex引擎，CSAA抗鋸齒技術和Quantum Effects。
NVIDIA Quadro – 高質素工作站用的专业绘图芯片
NVIDIA GoForce – 移动设备用的媒体处理器，多用於PDA, 智能手機和手提電話。備有nPower技術節省電力消耗。
- GoForce 2150 – 支援一百三十萬像素數碼鏡頭, JPEG和2D加速。
- GoForce 3000 – GoForce 4000的低價版本，功能較少。
- GoForce 4000 – 支援三百萬像素數碼鏡頭，硬體MPEG-4/H.263解碼。
- GoForce 4500 – 曾經用於Gizmondo, 支援3D繒圖，擁有幾何處理器和可編程像素著色引擎。
- GoForce 4800 – 支援三百萬像素數碼鏡頭和3D繒圖。
- GoForce 5500 – 支援一千萬像素數碼鏡頭，第二代3D繒圖引擎，24-bit音效引擎和H.264解碼。

[编辑] 個人電腦平台 / 芯片组

NVIDIA nForce - 原來只可支持AMD平台，在獲得Intel的授權後，從nForce4開始連Intel平台亦可支持。
- nForce IGP (AMD Athlon/Duron K7產品線)
- nForce2 (AMD Athlon/Duron K7產品線, 北橋被稱為SPP (system platform processor) 或 IGP (Integrated Graphics Platform)，後者整合了顯示晶片。而南橋被稱為MCP (Media and Communications Processor), 支援SoundStorm音效)
- nForce3 (AMD Athlon 64/Athlon 64 FX/AMD Opteron, 南北橋整合的單晶元晶元組，被稱為MCP)
- nForce4 (4X, Base, Ultra和SLi) (支援PCI Express，AMD Athlon 64處理器。SLI版本支援SLI技術)
- nForce 500 (AMD Athlon 64 FX/Athlon 64 X2/Athlon 64/Sempron 或 Intel Core 2 Extreme/Core 2 Duo/Pentium D/Pentium 4/Celeron D)
- nForce 600
- nForce Go 430 - 流動整合形晶元組,集成GeForce Go 6100顯視核心。
Xbox GeForce3級數顯示晶元 (使用Intel Pentium III/Celeron作為平台)
PlayStation 3 (RSX 'Reality Synthesizer')

[编辑] 市場歷史

[编辑] 在DirectX前

NVIDIA的第一張3D顯示卡是NV1，於1995年推出。它是建基於二次曲面貼圖作為立體圖形的實現方式。這張卡亦整合了音效卡(只能作播放用，並沒有音效輸入)，和世嘉土星遊戲手柄和操縱桿的接口。由於世嘉土星是建基於forward-rendered quads，幾款世嘉土星的遊戲亦被移植到電腦平台。例如鐵甲飛龍和VR戰士。但是，NV1只能艱難地行進，因為該市場已有很多對手。

之後，市場對NV1失去興趣，因為Microsoft發佈了DirectX規格。它以多邊形作為立體圖形的實現方式。隨後，NV1繼續秘密地發展，成為NV2計劃。該計劃由世嘉資助了幾百萬元。世嘉希望一個整合了音效和繪圖的核心能減低下一代遊戲核心的製造成本。但是，世嘉最終了解到二次曲面貼圖是有缺點的，最終亦沒有證據證明該核心被恰當地除錯。這事件成為NVIDIA黑暗的一面。

[编辑] 一個新穎的開始

NVIDIA's CEO Jen-Hsun Huang realized at this point after two failed products, something had to change if the company was to survive. He hired David Kirk, Ph.D. as Chief Scientist from software developer Crystal Dynamics, a company renowned for the visual quality of its titles. David Kirk turned NVIDIA around by combining the company's 3D hardware experience, with an intimate understanding of practical implementations of rendering.

As part of the corporate transformation, NVIDIA abandoned proprietary interfaces, sought to fully support DirectX, and dropped multimedia functionality, in order to reduce manufacturing costs. NVIDIA also adopted an internal 6 month product cycle goal. The future failure of any one product would not threaten the survival of the company, since a next generation replacement part would always be available.

However, since the Sega NV2 contract was secret, and employees had been laid off, it appeared to many industry observers that NVIDIA was no longer active in research and development. So when the RIVA 128 was first announced in 1997, the specifications were hard to believe: Performance superior to market leader 3dfx Voodoo Graphics, and a full hardware triangle setup engine. The RIVA 128 shipped in volume, and the combination of its low cost and high performance 2D/3D acceleration made it a popular choice for OEMs.

[编辑] 市場領導

Having finally developed and shipped in volume the market leading integrated graphics chipset, NVIDIA set the internal goal of doubling the number of pixel pipelines in its chip, in order to realize a substantial performance gain. The TwiN Texel (RIVA TNT) engine NVIDIA subsequently developed, allowed either for two textures to be applied to a single pixel, or for two pixels to be processed per clock cycle. The former case allowing for improved visual quality, the latter doubling maximum fill rate.

New features included a 24-bit Z-buffer with 8-bit stencil support, anisotropic filtering, and per-pixel MIP mapping. In certain respects such as transistor count, the TNT had begun to rival Intel's Pentium processors for complexity. However, while the TNT offered an astonishing range of quality integrated features, it failed to displace the market leader Voodoo 2, because the actual clock speed ended up at only 90 MHz, about 35% less than expected.

However, this was only a temporary respite for Voodoo, as NVIDIA's refresh part was a die shrink for the TNT architecture from 350 nm to 250 nm. Stock TNTs now ran at 125 MHz, ULTRAs at 150 MHz. The Voodoo 3 was barely any faster and lacked features such as 32-bit color. The RIVA TNT2 marks a major turning point for NVIDIA. They had finally delivered a product competitive with the fastest on the market, with a superior feature set, strong 2D functionality, all integrated onto a single die with strong yields, that ramped to impressive clock speeds.

[编辑] GeForce世代

在1999年下半年，NVIDIA推出了GeForce 256 (NV10)，最特別的是它帶來了硬體幾何轉換與光源(T&L)。GeForce 256的核心頻率是120 MHz。它亦提供了先進的影像播放加速、動態補償、硬件子像素alpha混合和四條像素流水線。配合DDR作為顯示記憶體，使NVIDIA輕易成為性能領導者。

基於產品的成功，NVIDIA嬴得了Microsoft的合約 - 為Xbox研發繪圖硬件。這令公司增加了二億美元收入。縱使這計劃用去了工程師很多時間，但短期內，並沒有對公司做成很大的影響。卒之，GeForce 2 GTS於2000年夏天正式發售。

NVIDIA從研發高度合成核心時，得到很多額外的經驗，並將之應用在GTS中，結果核心頻率得到了改善。NVIDIA亦可以選出較高質素的晶片，用作高價產品。最終，GTS的核心頻率是200 MHz。它的像素填充率是GF256的兩倍；材質填充率是GF256的四倍，因為每條像素流水線都支援多層貼圖。它亦新加支持S3TC壓縮技術、FSAA和改善了的MPEG-2動態補償。

隨後，NVIDIA推出了GeForce 2 MX，針對低廉和OEM市場。它只有兩條像素流水線，核心頻率是175 MHz，隨後增加到200 MHz。縱使價格低廉，但效能不俗。GeForce 2 MX成為史上最成功的顯示卡。而流動形號GeForce2 Go亦於2000年年尾裝運。

All of which finally proved too much for 3dfx whose Voodoo 5 had been delayed, and the board of directors started the process of dissolving 3dfx. This became one of the most spectacular and public bankruptcies in the history of personal computing. NVIDIA purchased 3dfx primarily for the intellectual property which was in dispute at the time, but also acquired anti-aliasing expertise, and about 100 engineers.

[编辑] GeForce FX的缺點

At this point NVIDIA’s market position looked unassailable, and industry observers began to refer to NVIDIA as the Intel of the graphics industry. However while the next generation FX chips were being developed, many of NVIDIA’s best engineers were working on the Xbox contract, developing the SoundStorm audio chip, and a motherboard solution.

It is also worth noting Microsoft paid NVIDIA for the chips themselves, and the contract did not allow for falling manufacturing costs, as process technology improved. Microsoft eventually realized its mistake, but NVIDIA refused to renegotiate the terms of the contract. As a result, NVIDIA and Microsoft relations, which had previously been very good, deteriorated. NVIDIA was not consulted when the DirectX 9 specification was drawn up. Apparently as a result, ATI designed the Radeon 9700 to fit the DirectX specifications. Rendering color support was limited to 24-bits floating point, and shader performance had been emphasized throughout development, since this was to be the main focus of DirectX 9. The Shader compiler was also built using the Radeon 9700 as the base card.

In contrast, NVIDIA’s cards offered 16 and 32 bit floating point modes, offering either lower visual quality (as compared to the competition), or slow performance. The 32 bit support made them much more expensive to manufacture requiring a higher transistor count. Shader performance was often only half or less the speed provided by ATI's competing products. Having made its reputation by providing easy to manufacture DirectX compatible parts, NVIDIA had misjudged Microsoft’s next standard, and was to pay a heavy price for this error. As more and more games started to rely on DirectX 9 features, the poor shader performance of the GeForce FX series became ever more obvious. With the exception of the FX 5700 series (a late revision), the FX series lacked performance compared to equivalent ATI parts.

NVIDIA started to become ever more desperate to hide the shortcomings of the GeForce FX range. A notable 'FX only' demo called Dawn was released, but the wrapper was hacked to enable it to run on a 9700, where it ran faster despite a perceived translation overhead. NVIDIA also began to include ‘optimizations’ in their drivers to increase performance. While some that increased real world gaming performance were valid, hardware review sites started to run articles showing how NVIDIA’s driver autodetected benchmarks, and produced artificially inflated scores that did not relate to real world performance. Oftentimes it was tips from ATI’s driver development team that lay behind these articles. As NVIDIA’s drivers became ever more full of hacks and ‘optimizations,' the legendary stability and compatibility also began to suffer. While NVIDIA did partially close the gap with new instruction reordering capabilities introduced in later drivers, shader performance remained weak, and over-sensitive to hardware specific code compilation. NVIDIA worked with Microsoft to release an updated DirectX compiler, that generated GeForce FX specific optimized code.

Furthermore, the GeForce FX series also ran hot, because they drew as much as double the amount of power as equivalent parts from ATI. The GeForce FX 5800 Ultra became notorious for the fan noise, and acquired the nicknames ‘Dustbuster’ and 'leafblower.' While it was withdrawn and replaced with quieter parts, NVIDIA was forced to ship large and expensive fans on its FX parts, placing NVIDIA's partners at a manufacturing cost disadvantage compared to ATI. As a result of the FX series' weaknesses, NVIDIA quite unexpectedly lost its market leadership position to ATI.

[编辑] 效能領導

NVIDIA's fightback began with the GeForce 6 series, which addressed the key issues that had plagued the FX series, namely shader performance and power consumption. By working closely with developers, especially as part of NVIDIA's "The way it's meant to be played" program, the company renewed its determination to produce integrated, easy to manufacture hardware, in line with industry requirements and expectations.

The results of this improved corporate focus came with the release of the GeForce 7 series. With 24 pixel pipelines, it gave NVIDIA the undisputed performance lead for the first time since the ATI 9700 release. ^{[來源請求]} More importantly, the parts shipped in volume the day the product was formally released. Pricing and availability has continued to be excellent, while ATI's comparable next generation parts suffered from repeated delays.

In 2005 NVIDIA also took advantage of the high bandwidth of PCI-Express, to introduce a new technology called Scalable Link Interface (SLI). Under this system, two graphics cards can be combined, to theoretically double graphical performance (though actual "real-world" performance is usually slightly less). This has done much to re-establish NVIDIA's reputation among niche high end gamers. ^{[來源請求]} This system is similar to the Crossfire versions of ATI's new X1000 series.

[编辑] 獨立顯示卡市場的優勢

根據一份Jon Peddie Research的調查^[4]，在2006年第二季，NVIDIA在顯示卡的市場估有率是20.30%，排行第三位。而獨立顯示卡的市場估有率是51.5%。

[编辑] 缺乏免費軟體的支持

主條目：NVIDIA and FOSS

NVIDIA並不提供自家產品的技術文件。對於電腦專家，在編寫適當和有效的開源驅動程式時，技術文件是必須的。取而代之，NVIDIA為X11提供自家的二進位GeForcce顯示卡驅動程式。另外，亦提供一個有限度開源的資料庫予Linux、FreeBSD或Solaris核心和非自由繪圖軟體。NVIDIA對Linux的支援已被娛樂、可視化和模擬/訓練工業共同採用。這些領域原先是由SGI、Evans & Sutherland和其他相較昂貴的公司所支配。

由於NVIDIA的驅動程式是私有的，這就在Linux和FreeBSD社群中引起不間斷的爭議。很多Linux和FreeBSD的用家堅持只使用開源的驅動程式，並認為二進位驅動程式是不夠格的。但是，亦有用家滿意NVIDIA支持的驅動程式。

[编辑] 原來設備製造商

NVIDIA不會製造顯示卡，只會生產顯示晶片。顯示卡是由OEM廠商配裝，以下是一個列表:

AOpen
ASUS
BFG (also via its 3D Fuzion brand)
BIG
Chaintech
Club 3D
ELSA
eVGA
Gainward
Gigabyte
Inno3D
Leadtek
Micro-Star International (MSI)
POV
PNY
XFX
Zebronics
Zogis

[编辑] 參考

[编辑] 外部連結

↑ PACE Soft Silicon Case Study: Taking Camcorder Technology to New Levels in Wireless Devices.
↑ InfoWorld news: Nvidia acquires Indian company for engineering staff, dated March 17, 2006.
↑ Press Release: NVIDIA to Acquire PortalPlayer, dated November 06, 2006.
↑ http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/video/display/20060731234259.html

**NVIDIA顯示核心列表**
早期晶片: NV1 • NV2
DirectX 5/6: RIVA 128 • RIVA TNT • RIVA TNT2
DirectX 7.x: GeForce_256 • GeForce_2
DirectX 8.x: GeForce3 • GeForce4
DirectX 9.x: GeForce FX • GeForce PCX • GeForce 6 • GeForce 7
DirectX 10: GeForce 8

**其他**NVIDIA**技術**
nForce: 220/415/420 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 500 •600 • C51 • C61• SoundStorm
專業級顯示卡: Quadro • Quadro Plex
顯示卡相关: TurboCache • SLI
軟體: Gelato • Cg
消費性電子產品: GoForce
電動遊戲操縱臺: Xbox • PlayStation 3