Chips and Technologies
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chips and Technologies (C&T) was the first fabless semiconductor company, a model developed by its founder Gordon Campbell.
Its first product was an EGA IBM compatible graphics chip. This was followed by chipsets for PC motherboards and other computer graphics chips. C&T also designed a 386-compatible microprocessor known as the Super386 38600DX/38600SX using clean room design techniques, but this chip never enjoyed as much success as the 386 CPUs produced by Intel, AMD, and Cyrix. C&T 38605DX had 512 byte cache, but РGA (144 pin) package was incompatible with 386 socket.
Chips and Technologies was the first company (outside of IBM) to deliver a compatible VGA chipset, the 82C451, opening up the IBM compatible graphics display market. This market was then entered by companies such as Trident Microsystems, Western Digital, Cirrus Logic, Oak Technologies, and others, until it was saturated.
Chips and Technologies provided the Wingine video card, a very high speed framebuffer that sat in a proprietary local bus slot on supported motherboards. Epson and JCIS were two manufacturers who offered motherboards featuring the Wingine local bus slot. The Wingine was popular with users of NEXTSTEP for Intel processors, as it was one of the highest performing video cards supported by the operating system.
C&T was acquired by Intel in 1997, primarily for its graphics chip business.
