Graphics Products Division, STMicroelectronics
The beginning
The Graphics Products Division (GPD) of STMicroelectronics (STM) was created following the announcement of the partnership with VideoLogic, later Imagination Technologies (ImgTec) on the 8th April 1999, for developing the next generation 3D accelerator aimed at the PC and digital consumer market. On the 19th May 1999 STM announced the plan to recruit 90 engineers over the following two years at the semiconductor R&D site at 1000 Aztec West, Bristol, UK.
The partnership was initially focused on the PowerVR Series 3 architecture, with three main sectors being targeted:
- PC Add-In Board (AIB)
- Low cost PC (typically integrated graphics)
- Digital Consumer (Set Top Boxes etc.)
However that was only the beginning, with a roadmap defined for the next 2 PowerVR series chips as part of the partnership, and beyond with STM's own STG7000. A leaked page from an investor presentation showed the post Series 3 (STG4000), 4 (STG5000) and 5 (STG6000) roadmap as:
Structure
The division was built up into a number of teams (as of 2000) including:
- Developer relations
- Hardware team building the STG4nnn chips
- Architecture team designing the STG7000
- Software team creating drivers for the STG7000
- Windows 2D/GDI
- Direct3D
- OpenGL
- Linux
- Demo team
Timeline of significant events
8th April 1999
Announcement of the partnership between STM and VideoLogic.
19th May 1999 - GPD
Announcement of the plan to recruit 90 engineers to be based at 1000 Aztec West in Bristol.
March 2000
Work starts on the STG7000NA, with an ambitious schedule of being in the position of having pre-production silicon and production drivers ready for 15th July 2002, with production shipments to start two weeks later.
6th June 2000 - Kyro
The Kyro (STG4000) announced at Computex 2000 in Taipai, Taiwan, with availability by the end of the month.
November/December 2000 - The move
The division was moved en-masse to occupy the first floor of 2430 The Quadrant in the opposite corner of the Aztec West business park. The space was needed at 1000 Aztec West for enlarging other teams.
12th March 2001 - Kyro II
The Kyro II (STG4500) announced.
At the same time, STM announced a commercial partnership and technical cooperation with Hercules to develop further leading-edge PC Graphics add-in board solutions "exploiting KYRO II’s clear performance leadership for PC games and similar applications requiring high performance, cost-effective graphics."
May/June 2001 - Returning home
Six months after moving to the Quadrant the division moved back to 1000 Aztec West and the same offices it had vacated. However it wasn't to be the same division that left in late 2000 as the teams had been restructured, with many of the STG7000 software and architecture teams especially being reassigned to work on other non-GPD projects that were expected to offer returns sooner.
26th June 2001
ImgTec announced the extension of the two year partnership with ST.
8th February 2002 - The end
The end officially came on the 8th February 2002 when STM announced that it was pulling out of the PC graphics accelerator chip market and was seeking a buyer for the assets of the business unit.
Why had the management of STM made that decision? In 2001 GPD had accounted for just ~$15m of the global $6.36bn revenues. Officially they had decided to focus instead on core areas such as communications, automotive, smart cards, computer peripherals and digital consumer products. This was a direct result of the dot.com crash and its impacts.
Unofficially, the writing had been on the wall ever since the move back into 1000 Aztec West. The restructuring of the teams foretold the re-focus, some 8+ months before the official end. Whilst the Kyro products reviewed well, received numerous awards and offered an enticing price/performance proposition that could take on the competition in the budget and mid-range sectors, and occasionally best the high end competition, there were head winds of both business and technical natures.
Internally stories swirled that Nvidia had been exerting significant pressure on STM's manufacturing partners not to build Kyro based products. It was virtually impossible to verify how true these stories were, but it was certainly picked up by the press leading to published stories here and here. As the saying goes "there's no smoke without fire", and Nvidia certainly went to great lengths to paint Kyro and the PowerVR technology in a negative light. This was particularly evident in the infamous "Kyro2 – What You Should Know" presentation published in March 2001 to coincide with the Kyro II's release.
Of particular note was their use of the old name for STM (SGS Thomson Microelectronics) and their omission of the fact that SGST had been their manufacturing and marketing partner for their NV1 (STG2000) and NV3 (STG3000/RIVA 128), the latter of which arguably saved their company and clearly demonstrated that STM could handle complex designs, despite their cherry picked examples.
Presumably they saw Kyro as significant competition, especially in the volume sector that maybe threatened their dominant position. Perhaps there was also petty jealously, or a percieved slight given the two companies prior partnership?
Added to the above business headwinds there was also slippage in the product development schedule. The STG4800 (Kyro II SE) was repeatedly delayed and ultimately would not go into production, despite being finally ready for production in early 2002, almost a full year after the release of the Kyro II. Why this product had continued to be developed and not been killed off sooner and the resources poured into the STG5500 is an interesting question that will never be answered.
21st February 2002
STM and ImgTec announced they are working together on designs for a mobile multimedia "entertainment" machine using PowerVR MBX and Super H RISC core. This did not involve GPD.
13th March 2002
ImgTec announced the Videologic Vivid!XS Elite Kyro II SE powered AIB at CeBIT 2002. At the same time Hercules announced the 3D Prophet 4800 based on the same chip. Neither product would go into production, although some pre-production smaples were made and were inexplicably sent to reviewers in mid-July 2002, despite STM having already announced they were leaving the sector, and having no buyer in H2 2002 for GPD or the licenses. An unknown number of STG4800X chips would be underclocked and sold as Kyro II's.
15th March 2002
VIA Technologies confirmed that it had been talking with STM with regards to purchasing GPD assets. However the fact that the main GPD assets contained both STM and ImgTec intellectual property made negotiations complicated and ultimately unsuccessful.
19th March 2002
STM forced to deny reports that it had laid off GPD staff.
Aftermath
According to STM's 2002 financial report GPD employee serverance costs were $1m, and were paid out by the end of 2002 1
It was confirmed on the 4th October 2002 that ImgTec had ceased development of the Series 4 architecture when STM had disbanded GPD, and accelerated development of the Series 5 architecture. Some of the Series 4 technologies found their way into the PowerVR MBX core, such as vertex geometry processing.
Hercules would leave the graphics AIB market in 2004.
The PowerVR Series 5 would return to the PC graphics scene as the SGX535 released in November 2007 as part of Intel's GMA500 integrated graphics chipset, but never as an AIB solution. The GMA500 supported Direct3D 9.0c/OpenGL 2.1. The SGX545 released in January 2010 as the GMA3600 would support Direct3D 10.1/OpenGL 3.2. Both were hampered by poor drivers and were not well received.
In March 2013 Nvidia would lease 930 Aztec West for 10 years, almost directly opposite and across the road from the STM site. However they appear to have left some time before the lease ended and it is now home to Highways England. Before 2013 they had also been based at 2520 The Quadrant, Aztec West, again almost directly opposite where GPD had relocated to for 6 months.
In July 2013 STM announced their intention to wind down operations at 1000 Aztec West, although they remained at the site until 2015. In 2023 it would undergo extensive renovation to become a much larger office space offering far more facilities.
