Hardware Reference
In-Depth Information
use of main system memory for video memory is often referred to as
unified memory
architecture
(UMA), and although this memory-sharing method was also used by some
built-in video that used its own chipset, it has become much more common with the rise
of integrated motherboard chipsets.
Silicon Integrated Systems (SiS) pioneered chipsets with integrated video in 1996 and
1997 with its SiS5510 and SiS5596 chipsets for laptop and desktop systems, respectively.
In 1997, Cyrix Semiconductor (now owned by VIA Technologies) introduced the Medi-
aGX, which was the first to build both graphics and chipset functions into a PC-compat-
ible CPU. National Semiconductor and later AMD developed improved versions of the
MediaGX known as the Geode GX series.
Intel introduced motherboard chipsets with integrated graphics in 1999, starting with its
810 chipset for the Pentium III and Celeron processors. The 810 (code-named Whitney)
heralded the beginning of widespread industry support for this design and the beginning
of Intel's dominance in the graphics market. Intel later followed the release of the 810
series (810 and 810E) with the 815 series for the Pentium III and Celeron, most of which
also feature integrated video.
Since then, Intel has offered versions of both desktop and mobile chipsets with integrated
graphics and has become the world's largest supplier of graphics chips. This may sound
strange because most people think of NVIDIA and AMD (thanks to its ownership of ATI)
when it comes to graphics. Although NVIDIA and AMD may dominate in the high-end
discrete graphics chip market, the market for lower-cost desktop and laptop systems with
integratedgraphicsislargerthanthatfordiscretegraphics.
Table12.1
showsgraphicschip
market share data from JPR (Jon Peddie Research).
Table 12.1 Graphics Chip Market Share
Table 12.2
shows the types and features for the integrated graphics available in Intel
motherboard chipsets over the years.
Table 12.2 Intel Chipset Integrated Video
