ATI Technologies Inc. Project made by Jrmie Brun For COMP 1631
Winter 2011
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Table of content Introduction Facts Founder The Birth of ATI
Products Ruby Competitors Fusion References
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Introduction ATI Technologies Inc. was found in 1985 (as Array
Technologies Inc.). Kwok Yuen Ho. Although its main products are
graphics processing units, ATI also makes : Personal computer
platforms and chipsets Multimedia and digital TV products Console
Graphics products Handheld chipsets High performance computing
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Facts ATI is a subsidiary of AMD Its main headquarter is
located in Markham, Ontario. The president of the company is Adrian
Hartog and the vice president is Rick Bergman. It is a
semiconductor type of industry. In 2006, AMD acquires ATI to create
a new, innovative processing powerhouse.
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Founder Ho, ATIs founder was born in 1950 in China to a wealthy
family. However, his family became poor. Ho spent his early years
in life peddling vegetables. His father had to go work in a factory
in Hong Kong, sending money to his family when he could. In 1962,
the family was together again in a one-room flat in Hong-Kong. He
attended National Cheng Kung University and graduated from there
with a bachelors in Electrical Engineering in 1974. He had several
jobs related to his field of studies such as Control Data Systems,
Philips Electronics, and National Semiconductor. He then went on to
be general manager at Wongs Electronics Co. Ltd., a pc
manufacturing and assembly house. He then immigrated to Canada in
1984, where he had trouble finding a position comparable to what he
had in Hong-Kong. Kwok Yuen Ho
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The birth of ATI Technologies Inc. With the help of two other
Hong-Kong immigrant, Benny Lau and Lee Lau, Ho started the company
focusing on graphic cards. They had trouble at first, with only
their life savings for money and no computer manufacturers were
willing to make business with them. After three months, the had no
more money. The Overseas Union Bank of Singapore loaned them
300,000$ but was later increased to 1.5 million.
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The birth of ATI Technologies Inc. Their company was still in
trouble. They needed one design to be able to continue to run the
company. Their first big break came later on in the year when
Commodore signed on. They were ordering 7, 000 chips a week. They
began to make profit and by the end of the year, ATI had 10 million
in revenues.
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Products Graphics processing units: ATI has had a number of
graphics processing units. Its most recent is the Radeon series. It
first launched in 2000 and was made for consumers who wants 3D
accelerator add-in cards. ATI is currently working on EyeFinity and
EyeSpeed. EyeFinity consists of 6 monitors connected together to
allow surround-screen panoramic. EyeSpeed allows you to experience
games with true-to-life actions. Personal computer platforms and
chipsets: The first chipsets ATI invented was IGP 3x0, Mobility
Radeon 7000 IGP. It included a DirectX 7-level 3D graphics
processor. Their latest products are the AMD 800 chipset
series.
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Products Multimedia and Digital TV Products: ATI has a All-in-
Wonder series which is a series of multimedia graphics cards that
incorporates TV tuner and Radeon graphics cards all in one. This
was discontinued but later relaunched as All-In-Wonder HD in 2008.
ATI also made TV tuners and a wireless remote control series for
ATI multimedia products. Console graphics products: One of ATIs
console graphics products is Flipper. This contains a 3D
accelerator developed by ArtX. Flipper is used in the Nintendo
GameCube. Another product of ATI is Xenos, which is used in
Microsoft's Xbox 360. The third product is Hollywood. Hollywood is
part of the Nintendo Wii.
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Products Handheld chipsets: The first handheld chipset by ATI,
called Imageon, was introduced in 2002. It brings 2D and 3D
graphics to handheld devices, like cellphones. Their second
product, called Imageon TV, was announced in 2006. Imageon TV
allows handheld products to receive digital broadcast TV signals.
High Performance Computing: Started with ATI Firestream, but later
rebranded as AMD Stream Processor. It utilize the stream processing
concept, together with Close to Metal hardware interface.
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ATIs fictional character : Ruby In 2003, ATI was working on a
demo to show the public just how much their graphics hardware were
strong and they needed a story to prove. Ruby came along in the
picture.
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Ruby In order to developed storyboards for the plot and script,
ATI worked with their own FireGL workstation graphics accelerators
and Alias Maya 3D graphics software. They also collaborated with
RhinoFX. To make Ruby look as human as possible, they held
auditions. The actors auditioning had to perform martial arts moves
that would be digitized through a capture system. Working with the
motion capture data, animators began to rig skeletons to represent
the storys characters.
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ATIs competitor : NVidia ATI and NVidia have been competitor
for a long period of time. Although NVidia has been known for
better prices, ATI provides better quality graphics cards. Another
big difference is that ATIs graphics cards are used in Microsoft's
Xbox 360 while NVidia's graphics cards are used in Sonys
PlayStation 3.
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Fusion In 2006, Advanced Micro Devices(AMD) took over ATI and
merged the two companies together. It still remained AMD but with
ATIs technology in their products. They called their first product
Fusion. They merged a CPU and GPU on some of their chips, thereby
eliminating the requirement of a Northbridge chip completely from
the motherboard. In august 2010, they announced that they will
retire the ATI brand and go only with AMD.