AMD 2008 Annual Report Download - page 20

Graphics Products
Graphics Market
The semiconductor graphics market addresses the need for visual processing in various computing and
entertainment platforms such as desktop PCs, notebook PCs and workstations. Users of these products value a
rich visual experience, particularly in the high-end enthusiast market where consumers seek out the fastest and
highest performing visual processing products to deliver the most compelling and immersive gaming
experiences. Moreover, for some consumers, the PC is evolving from a traditional data and communications
processing machine to an entertainment platform. Visual realism and graphical display capabilities are key
elements of product differentiation among various product platforms. This has led to the increasing creation and
use of processing intensive multimedia content for PCs and to PC manufacturers creating more PCs designed for
playing games, displaying photos and capturing TV and other multimedia content. In turn, the trend has
contributed to the development of higher performance graphics solutions.
The primary product of a semiconductor graphics supplier is the GPU. The GPU off-loads the burden of
graphics processing from the CPU. In this way, a dedicated GPU and CPU work in tandem to increase overall
speed and performance of the system. A graphics solution can be in the form of either a stand-alone graphics chip
or an integrated chipset solution. Recently, to further improve graphics processing performance, semiconductor
graphics suppliers have introduced multi-GPU technologies that increase graphics processing speed by dividing
graphics rendering and display capability among two or more graphics processors.
Graphics Products
Our customers generally use our graphics to increase the speed of rendering images and to improve image
resolution and color definition. Our products include 3D graphics and video and multimedia products developed
for use in desktop and notebook PCs, including home media PCs, professional workstations and servers. With
each of our graphics products, we provide drivers and supporting software packages that enable the effective use
of these products under a variety of operating systems and applications. Our latest generation of graphics
products and related software offer full support for the Microsoft®Windows Vista®operating system. In addition
to the Microsoft®Windows®family of operating systems, our graphics products support Apple’s Mac OS X as
well as Linux®-based applications.
Discrete Desktop Products. Our discrete GPUs for desktop PCs include the ATI Radeon HD 4000 series
of products which we introduced in June 2008. This product family includes the ATI Radeon HD 4800 series for
the enthusiast segment of the desktop PC market as well as the ATI Radeon HD 4600 series, ATI Radeon HD
4500 series and the ATI Radeon HD 4300 series for the mainstream and value segments of the desktop PC
market. The ATI Radeon 4000 series supports Microsoft DirectX™10, a 3D application performance interface,
or API. The ATI Radeon HD 4000 series of products incorporate the ATI Unified Video Decoder (UVD) which
enables HD-DVD and Blu-ray™playback with low CPU and power utilization.
Although desktop PC manufacturers have tended to rely on IGP chipsets for graphics, we believe that
discrete graphic solutions, which offer higher performance, will continue to be the preferred solution across
desktop PC configurations and platforms designed for gaming enthusiasts, CAD professionals and animation as
well as for application such as multimedia, photo and video editing and other graphic-intensive applications.
With the availability of Microsoft®Windows Vista™and Microsoft DirectX™10, HD video standards like
Blu-ray™and the availability of PCI Express 2.0, end users across the spectrum are realizing the importance of
graphics in a computer system.
Discrete Notebook Products. Our discrete GPUs for the notebook PC market include the ATI Mobility
Radeon HD 3000 series of products which we introduced in January 2008. When selecting a graphics solution,
key considerations for notebook PC manufacturers are visual performance, power consumption, form factor and
cost.
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