Trident leaves PC graphics chip market

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Chipmaker Trident Microsystems will exit the PC graphics market as part of a sweeping reorganisation that will shift its focus to digital media products such as high-definition television. The graphics chipmaker said on Thursday that it will leave the PC graphics arena via a merger of its graphics division with newly created Xabre Graphics, otherwise known as XGI, a subsidiary of Taiwan-based chipset maker Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS). XGI began operating earlier this month. Trident will own 30 percent of the new company, which will retain the XGI name and focus on building PC graphics chips. The combination will lend Trident's PC graphics chips and customers, complementing XGI's Xabre line of desktop graphics chips, thus allowing the new company to sell a broader line of products. The Trident graphics division management team will be transferred in the deal. For many manufacturers, the PC graphics business has become more and more difficult to survive in as PC makers have shifted their desktop PCs to chipsets from Intel that include built-in graphics processors. This movement has led to consolidation and transformed Intel in the leading PC graphics company. ATI Technologies and Nvidia still sell the greatest number of standalone graphics chips and graphics boards that go into more expensive desktops and many notebooks. However, Trident graphics chips are still popular, especially among notebook manufacturers. Following the merger of its graphics division with XGI, expected to be completed before 1 July, Trident will merge its digital media division -- which creates graphics hardware for high-definition TVs, LCD TVs and similar products -- with its Trident Technologies, or TTI subsidiary, based in Taiwan. Trident will now own about 90 percent of the new, beefed-up TTI subsidiary, up from 68 percent before the reorganisation. TTI will focus its efforts on building products for digital televisions and set-top boxes, as well as for non-PC electronics devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs). The transaction is expected to close in June and may lead to an initial public offering in the US or Taiwan, the company said. Yet another Trident subsidiary, Trident Multimedia Technologies, will begin using Trident graphics and digital media technologies to develop new products outside the PC and TV categories, such as graphics chips for PDAs or cellular phones, the company said. Trident did not reveal financial terms of any of the deals.
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