NVIDIA facts for kids

The Nvidia GTX 1070 video card, which uses a 16 nm Pascal chip and was first released in June 2016.

The American NVIDIA Corporation is a multinational company (has branches in many countries), specialized in production of graphics processors technologies for computers and small mobile devices (for example: smartphones). The company, based in Santa Clara, California, is main company supplying electronic chips for motherboard chipsets, smart phones' graphic controller, graphics processing units (GPUs), and game consoles. The NVIDIA is mostly famous for its product lines: GeForce, Quadro, and nForce (chipsets).

Company history

The name of company "NVIDIA", is combination of two parts: n (usually used as a mathematical variable) and video (Latin: to "see"). NVIDIA was established in 1993 by Jen-Hsun Huang (presentCEO), Curtis Priem, and Chris Malachowsky. In 2000 NVIDIA took over intellectual possession of 3dfx, one of the biggest GPU producers in 90s.

On December 14, 2005, NVIDIA took control over ULI (then suplied 30% Southbridge parts for chipsets to ATI), NVIDIA's competitor. In March 2006, NVIDIA bought company Hybrid Graphics and on January 5, 2007, it announced that it had completed the acquisition of PortalPlayer, Inc.

In December 2006 NVIDIA, along with its main rival in the graphics industry AMD (which bought ATI), received subpoenas from the Justice Department regarding possible antitrust violations in the graphics-card industry.

Forbes magazine called NVIDIA "Company of the Year for 2007" for accomplishing company goals in last 5 years.

Graphics chipsets

• NV1 – NVIDIA's first product, based on quadratic surfaces
• RIVA 128 and RIVA 128ZX – DirectX 5 support, OpenGL 1 support, NVIDIA's first DirectX-compliant hardware
• RIVA TNT, RIVA TNT2 – DirectX 6 support, OpenGL 1 support; the series that made NVIDIA a market-leader
• NVIDIA GeForce - Desktop-graphics acceleration-solutions
• NVIDIA Quadro – High-quality workstation solutions
• NVIDIA Tesla - Dedicated GPGPU processing for High Performance Computing systems
• NVIDIA GoForce – Media processors for PDAs, Smartphones, and mobile phones featuring nPower technology
• GPU for game consoles
  • Xbox GeForce 3 - class GPU (on an Intel Pentium III/Celeron platform)
  • PlayStation 3 - RSX 'Reality Synthesizer'

Personal-computer platforms and chipsets

• NVIDIA nForce
  • nForce IGP (AMD Athlon/Duron K7 line)
  • nForce2 (AMD Athlon/Duron K7 line, SPP (system platform processor) or IGP (Integrated Graphics Platform) and MCP (Media and Communications Processor), also features SoundStorm)
  • nForce3 (AMD Athlon 64/Athlon 64 FX/Opteron, MCP only)
  • nForce4 (AMD Athlon 64/Athlon 64 X2/Athlon 64 FX/Opteron, MCP only;Intel Pentium 4/Pentium D, SSP + MCP)
  • nForce 500 (AMD Athlon 64 FX/Athlon 64 X2/Athlon 64/Sempron or Intel Core 2 Extreme/Core 2 Duo/Pentium 4/Celeron D/Pentium D)
  • nForce 600 (AMD Quad FX or Intel Core 2 Quad/Core 2 Extreme/Core 2 Duo/Pentium 4/Celeron D/Pentium D)
  • nForce 700 (Intel Core 2 and AMD Phenom)

Images for kids

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  Aerial view of the new Nvidia headquarters building and surrounding campus and area in Santa Clara, California, in 2017. Apple Park is visible in the distance.

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  A Shield Tablet with its accompanying input pen (left) and game controller

See also

In Spanish: Nvidia para niños