List of graphics chips and card companies

During the 1980s and 1990s, a relatively large number of companies appeared selling primarily 2D graphics cards and later 3D. Most of those companies have subsequently disappeared, as the increasing complexity of GPUs substantially increased research and development costs. Many of these companies subsequently went bankrupt or were bought out. Amongst the notable discrete graphics card vendors, AMD and Nvidia are the only ones that have lasted. In 2022, Intel entered the discrete GPU market with the Arc series and has three more generations confirmed on two year release schedules.

There are currently 102 manufacturers in this incomplete list.

Graphics chip makers

Many of the companies listed below also design(ed) graphics cards.

Name	Country of origin	Year of market entry	Year of market exit	Fate	Notes
3dfx	United States	1994	2001	Bankruptcy; acquired by Nvidia in 2002
3Dlabs	United States	1994	2009	Merged with Creative Labs' personal entertainment division to form ZiiLABS
ALi	Taiwan	1987	2006	Acquired by Nvidia	Formerly a division of Acer, full name Acer Laboratories Incorporated
Alphamosaic	United Kingdom	2000	2004	Acquired by Broadcom	Original developers of the VideoCore series of discrete mobile GPUs [1]
AMD	United States	2006	Active		Current developers of the Radeon series; entered graphics chip industry after acquiring ATI Technologies in 2006
Apple	United States	2016	Active		Entered the graphics card market in 1981; began developing GPUs with the A10 SoC in 2016 (based on Imagination's PowerVR) and introduced their first entirely in-house GPU with the A11 SoC in 2017
ARK Logic	United States	1993	1999	Bankruptcy
Arm Holdings	United Kingdom	2005	Active		Developers of the Mali and Immortalis lines of mobile GPUs
ArtX	United States	1997	2000	Acquired by ATI Technologies
ATI Technologies	Canada	1985	2006	Acquired by AMD	Pioneering company, developers of the Wonder, the Mach, the Rage, the All-in-Wonder, and finally the Radeon series of graphics cards
Avance Logic	United States	1991	2002	Acquired by Realtek in 1995; dissolved in 2002
BitBoys	Finland	1991	2009	Acquired by ATI Technologies
Broadcom	United States	2004	Active		Current developers of the VideoCore series; entered graphics chip industry after acquiring Alphamosaic in 2004
Chips and Technologies	United States	1984	1997	Acquired by Intel
Chromatic Research	United States	1993	1998	Acquired by ATI Technologies
Cirrus Logic	United States	1984	2005	Spun off graphics chip division to create Magnum Semiconductor, which was acquired by IDT in 2017
Evans & Sutherland	United States	1968	2001	Sold its graphics chip assets to Real Vision	Still active in the computer simulation business [2]
Gemini Technology	Canada	1984	1990	Bankruptcy; acquired by Seiko Epson to form the Vancouver Design Center
Genoa Systems	United States	1984	2002	Bankruptcy
GigaPixel	United States	1997	2000	Acquired by 3dfx
Headland Technology	United States	1989	1993	Sold its graphics chip assets to Spea Software	Formerly a division of LSI Logic's Standard Products Group
Imagination Technologies	United Kingdom	1985	Active		Founded as VideoLogic; developers of the PowerVR series
Integrated Information Technology	United States	1987	Un­known	Exited the graphics chip industry	Following exit became 8x8, a provider of videoconferencing and VoIP products
Intel	United States	1982	Active		Entered the graphics chip industry after becoming the second source for NEC's μPD7220 in 1982; entered the discrete GPU market with the Arc series in 2022
iXMicro	United States	1994	2000	Bankruptcy	Produced graphics cards for Macintosh and Macintosh clones
Jingjia Micro	China	2006	Active		China's largest producer of GPUs
Matrox	Canada	1976	Un­known	Exited the graphics chip industry	Once a mass manufacturer of graphics chips, now targets niche markets; still produces graphics cards based on Intel's Arc GPUs
Moore Threads	China	2020	Active		Developers of the MTT series, China's first domestically produced graphics card [3]
MOS Technology	United States	1979	2000	Dissolution	Produced the VIC and TED lines of graphics chips; owned by Commodore International
NEC	Japan	1979	Un­known	Exited the graphics chip industry	Produced the influential μPD7220, widely used in 1980s microcomputers
NeoMagic	United States	1993	Active		Supplier of mobile SoCs with integrated GPUs
Number Nine Visual Technology	United States	1982	1999	Acquired by S3	Developed the first 128-bit graphics processor
Nvidia	United States	1993	Active		Developers of the GeForce series; largest producer of discrete desktop graphics chips as of 2023 [update] [4]
Oak Technology	United States	1987	2003	Acquired by Zoran
OPTi	United States	1993	2001	Dissolution
Paradise Systems	United States	1982	1996	Dissolution	Acquired by Western Digital in 1986, then sold to Philips in 1995
Primus Technology	United States	1992	1993	Disappeared from the marketplace	Produced a Windows accelerator by the name P2000 [5]
Qualcomm	United States	2008	Active		Developers of the Adreno series
Radius	United States	1986	2002	Acquired by Media 100	Produced graphics solutions primarily for Apple Computer
Raycer	United States	1996	1999	Acquired by Apple Computer
Real3D	United States	1995	1999	Acquired by Intel
Realtek	Taiwan	1995	Un­known	Exited the graphics chip industry
Rendition	United States	1993	1998	Acquired by Micron Technology
S3 Graphics	United States	1989	2000	Merged with Diamond Multimedia, then sold off its core graphics division to VIA Technologies; later sold off to HTC
Samsung Electronics	South Korea	2022	Active		Began employing AMD's RDNA GPU microarchitecture into their Exynos SoCs in 2022
Silicon Graphics	United States	1981	2006	Stopped developing graphics chips in-house in 2006 and started buying GPUs from other companies	Later went completely defunct in 2009; its assets were bought in the resulting Chapter 11 bankruptcy by Rackable Systems, which changed its name to Silicon Graphics International
Silicon Image	United States	1995	2015	Acquired by Lattice Semiconductor
Silicon Integrated Systems	Taiwan	1997	2003	Spun off graphics chip division to form XGI
Tamarack Microelectronics	Taiwan	1987	2002	Merged with IC Plus in 2002
Texas Instruments	United States	1979	Un­known	Exited the graphics chip industry
Trident Microsystems	United States	1987	2003	Sold its graphics chip assets to XGI in 2003	Following exit entered bankruptcy in 2012
Tseng Labs	United States	1983	1998	Sold its graphics chip assets to ATI Technologies in 1997
United Microelectronics Corporation	Taiwan	1980	Un­known	Exited the graphics chip industry	Following exit in the late 1990s became a chip foundry
VIA Technologies	Taiwan	1999	2011	Exited the graphics chip industry	Entered the graphics chip industry after forming a joint venture with S3 [6] [7]
Video Seven	United States	1984	1989	Merged with G-2 Inc., a subsidiary of LSI Logic, to form Headland Technology
Vivante Corporation	United States	2004	2015	Acquired by VeriSilicon
Weitek	United States	1991	1996	Bankruptcy	Producer of the Power9000 series of GPUs from circa 1991 to 1994
Western Digital Imaging	United States	1986	1995	Dissolution	Formed as the result of merger between Paradise Systems and Verticom Inc.
ZiiLABS	United States	2009	2012	Assets split between Creative Technology and Intel

Graphics card makers

Name	Country of origin	Year of market entry	Year of market exit	Chips used	Fate	Notes
Acer	Taiwan	1987	Active	Arc, Radeon, ALi (formerly)
Actix Systems	United States	1990	1998	S3	Dissolution
Appian Graphics	United States	1994	2001		Acquired by ATI Technologies
Artist Graphics	United States	1979	1995		Bankruptcy
ASRock	Taiwan	2002	Active	Arc, Radeon
Asus	Taiwan	1996	Active	GeForce, Radeon, ViRGE (formerly)		[8]
BFG Technologies	United States	2002	2010		Bankruptcy
Biostar	Taiwan	2004	Active	Radeon, GeForce
Boca Research	United States	1989	2002		Acquired by Ener1
Cardinal Technologies	United States	1991	1997		Bankruptcy
Chaintech	Taiwan	Un­known	Un­known	GeForce
Creative Technology	Singapore	1994	Un­known	Various		[9]
Cromemco	United States	1975	1987		Sold to Dynatech Corporation	Introduced the first color graphics card for microcomputers, the Dazzler, in 1976
Diamond Multimedia	United States	1989	Active	Various
Elitegroup Computer Systems	Taiwan	1992	Active			[10]
ELSA Technology	Germany	1989	Active	GeForce, S3 (formerly)		[11]
EVGA	United States	1999	2022	GeForce	Exited the graphics card industry; still in business
Foxconn	Taiwan	2004	Un­known	GeForce		[12]
Gainward	Taiwan	1995	Active	GeForce, Trio (formerly), ViRGE (formerly)		[13]
GALAX	Hong Kong	1994	Active	GeForce
Gigabyte Technology	Taiwan	Un­known	Active	GeForce, Radeon
Hercules Computer Technology	United States	1982	1998		Acquired by Guillemot Corporation
Hightech Information System	Hong Kong	2002	Active	Radeon		[14]
Colorful Co., Ltd.  [ zh ]	Taiwan	1995	Active	GeForce
Innovation Computer	United States	1983	Un­known		Dissolution
Leadtek	Taiwan	1995	Active	GeForce, Tseng Labs (formerly)		[15]
Maxsun  [ zh ]	Taiwan	2002	Active	GeForce
Media Vision	United States	1990	1996		Bankruptcy
Micro-Star International	Taiwan	1986	Active	Radeon, GeForce
Nth Graphics	United States	1986	Un­known		Bankruptcy	[16]
Orchid Technology	United States	1982	1994		Acquired by Micronics Computers, then by Diamond Multimedia
Palit Microsystems	Taiwan	1988	Active	GeForce, Trident (formerly), S3 (formerly)
PNY Technologies	United States	2001	Active	GeForce		[17]
Point of View	Netherlands	2000	Active
PowerColor	Taiwan	1997	Active	Radeon
Sapphire Technology	Hong Kong	2001	Active	Radeon
Sparkle Computer	Taiwan	2000	Active	Arc, GeForce (formerly)		[18]
Spea Software	Germany	1985	1995		Acquired by Diamond Multimedia in 1995, then by ATI Technologies in 2001
STB Systems	United States	1981	1999		Acquired by 3dfx
Vectrix	United States	1980	1993		Bankruptcy
Vermont Microsystems	United States	1982	Un­known		Bankruptcy
XFX	United States	2002	Active	Radeon, GeForce
Zotac	Hong Kong	2006	Active	GeForce

References

1. "Broadcom Agrees to Buy Alphamosaic". Los Angeles Times. September 21, 2004. Archived from the original on February 3, 2024. Retrieved February 3, 2024.
2. Donelan, Jenny (October 2001). "Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp". Computer Graphics World. 24 (10). PennWell: 10 – via Gale. Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp. (Salt Lake City, UT) has announced that it will sell its REALimage business unit, which makes semiconductor chips for advanced graphics and video applications, to the Japanese firm of Real Vision. The sale has a maximum value of $12 million.
3. Tyson, Mark (March 30, 2022). "China's First Domestic GPU Announced with 1080p League of Legends Demo". Tom's Hardware. Future Publishing.
4. Shilov, Anton (September 6, 2023). "GPU Market 'Healthy and vibrant' in Q2 2023: Report". Tom's Hardware. Archived from the original on March 14, 2024. Retrieved March 14, 2024.
5. O'Brien, Bill (December 1992). "Celerite Galaxy 2000". Computer Shopper. 12 (12). SX2 Media Labs: 178 – via Gale.
6. Ristelhueber, Robert (April 12, 1999). "S3-Via Deal to Integrate Graphics, Logic". Electronic News. 45 (15). Sage Publications: 2 – via Gale.
7. Brown, Richard (July 6, 2011). "VIA Technologies Announces Sale of Stake in S3 Graphics". Business Wire.
8. "ASUS Graphics Card 20th Anniversary". Asus.com. ASUSTeK Computer. 2016.
9. Hottinger, Katie (April 25, 1994). "Cirrus buys Austek patents, 3Dlabs teams with Creative in 3D graphics". Electronic News. 40 (2011). Sage Publications: 8 – via Gale.
10. Staff writer (September 21, 1992). "Elitegroup graphics card supports 16.7M colors". PC Week. 9 (38). Ziff-Davis: 34 – via Gale.
11. Haefeker, Walter; Donna Fritz (December 4, 1989). "ELSA GmbH announces its new U.S. operation, ELSA America, to provide higher performance graphics capability". PR Newswire – via Gale.
12. Staff writer (July 1, 2004). "Nvidia Debuts MXM Graphics Interface for Notebooks". Computer Workstations. 17 (7). Worldwide Videotex – via Gale.
13. Brown, Bruce (July 1996). "Go much faster for a lot less". Computer Shopper. 16 (7). SX2 Media Labs: 367 et seq. – via Gale.
14. "ATI Technologies Inc. Expands Add-In-Board Business with Two New Strategic Relationships". Market News Publishing. COMTEX News Network. March 12, 2002 – via Gale.
15. Staff writer (September 1995). "WinFast T230 Pro with LeadPhone". PC World. 13 (9). IDG Communications: 90 – via Gale.
16. Estill, Lyle (January 1990). "Unfree Enterprise". Journal of Business Ethics. 9 (1). Springer Nature: 39–43 [39]. JSTOR   25072002.
17. Staff writer (October 1, 2001). "NVIDIA GeForce Titanium Series of GPUs Selected by Top PC and Add-In-Card OEMS". PR Newswire – via Gale.
18. Jenkins, Jason (May 2001). "Party like it's 999£". PC Direct. ZDNet: 154 et seq. – via Gale.