Centaur Technology

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Centaur Technology is an x86 CPU design company, now a wholly owned subsidiary of VIA Technologies, a member of Taiwan's largest industrial conglomerate, the Formosa Plastics Group.

[edit] History

Centaur Technologies Inc. was founded in April, 1995 by Glenn Henry, Terry Parks, Darius Gaskins, and Al Sato. The funding came from Integrated Device Technology, Inc (IDT). The business goal was to develop compatible x86 processors that were much less expensive than Intel processors and consumed much lower power.

There were two fundamental elements of the plan. First, a unique design, developed from scratch, of a x86 processor core optimized differently than Intel's cores. Second, a unique management approach designed to achieve very high productivity.

While founded by IDT, three different Centaur designs were shipped under the marketing name of WinChip. In September, 1999, Centaur was purchased from IDT by VIA Technologies, a Taiwanese company. Since then, five designs have shipped with marketing name of VIA C3, and the latest design, now shipping as the VIA C7 processor.