Graphic Cards Nvidia acquires ULi

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Nvidia nabs ULi
ATI's chip partner to be bought by its arch-rival

Nvidia is to buy Taiwanese chipset company ULi in a stock purchase that values the acquisition at $52m.

ULi is part of ALi - aka Acer Labs - and was established as a fabless chip-maker in 2002 to handle ALi's chipset development and production. It's those products that Nvidia's after, to expand its nForce line-up into the low-end market, possibly because it expects Intel to play a much reduced role in this space over time.

Nvidia also said it hopes the ULi purchase will strengthen its presence in the Taiwanese and Chinese markets. The company said it intends to continue to supply ULi customers with current products for the foreseeable future.

Ironically, ULi has been supplying Nvidia's arch-rival ATI with South Bridge chips for its Intel-oriented chipsets for some time, and it will be interesting to see how that relationship progresses.

Under the terms of the agreement, Nvidia will pay TWD19 ($0.57) in cash for each outstanding ULi share and stock option. The acquisition, which is expected to be completed in Nvidia's Q1 FY2007 - which ends 1 May 2006 - provided regulators and shareholders approve.
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Source: Channel Register

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This is a brilliant move by nVIDIA... Uli has shown in the recent past that it is one of the top chipset manufacturers for AMD... It has designed southbridge for ATI crossfire platform and has designed a excellent chipset for AMD platform itself(Remember the Asrock 939 Dual STA Board)... Will definatley help nVIDIA in strengthing thier roots... Hope to see a AGP + PCI SLI platform soon from nVIDIA now for AMD...
 
Switch said:
This is a brilliant move by nVIDIA... Uli has shown in the recent past that it is one of the top chipset manufacturers for AMD... It has designed southbridge for ATI crossfire platform and has designed a excellent chipset for AMD platform itself(Remember the Asrock 939 Dual STA Board)... Will definatley help nVIDIA in strengthing thier roots... Hope to see a AGP + PCI SLI platform soon from nVIDIA now for AMD...
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ejjactly what they hoped to achieve bhai.....btw their roots are strong but the leaves continue to fall :bleh:
 
Ironically, ULi has been supplying Nvidia's arch-rival ATI with South Bridge chips for its Intel-oriented chipsets for some time, and it will be interesting to see how that relationship progresses.
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And the Southbridge that was being designed for the cross-fire boards too :(
 
Lol. It was more of a Loss to ATi than a gain to nVidia :).

Really smart move to try and delay Crossfire/make it less popular.
 
Yeah, now expect CF boards from nVidia, offering 50% less performance :p

BTW, I just hope nVidia releases a comprehensive PCIe + AGP platform, picking up from the beatiful ULi 1675M chipset...
 
Anish said:
Yeah, now expect CF boards from nVidia, offering 50% less performance
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Huh?? nvidia acquired ULi , not ATi . No way can they even produce anything remotely CrossFire-like with just ULi :p
 
^^ Eddy, I was being sarcastic :p

Now that nVidia have acquired ULi, they have the technology to make CF boards (atleast the Southbridges)...

So I meant that they could make CF boards, and sell them, like earning more profits even on ATi/CF purchases...
 
Hope that ULi dosen't meet the sad end that 3dfx met...when nVidia aquired it.Thier chipsets were looking real threating to nforce, especially with ULi coming with a cheap alternative to SLI...brilliant move by nVidia nonetheless but bad for consumers
 
But the competition surely is gone... I remember seeing a Sli + AGP prototype at AT on a ULI chipset based board... That was a serious threat to nVIDIA...
 
Aces170 said:
^^ 3dfx tech is not wasted, where do you think Nvidia got the SLI from ?
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Ofcourse, they will reuse thier technologies, they're spending $50mil afterall.ULi prez. Mr.Huang recently in interview to Digitimes spoke:
Nvidia will adjust its chipset roadmap following the acquisition of ULi Electronics, according to company president and CEO Huang Jen-hsun. Nvidia is looking to enhance its high-end chipset line for the Intel platform, but has no plans to participate in the entry-level segment for the short term, said Huang.
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It was the entry level in which ULi was so good, providing extreme value for money products, like dual socket motherboards, cheap SLI boards(which was proposed), etc which nVidia don't want to continue.
Besides god knows if they would continue to provide driver updates for existing ULi products , they didn't provide any software updates after they aquired 3dfx.Customer's who have bought ULi boards recently may get stuck, especially with new OS Vista coming up soon.
 
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