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Any regular readers of this report, or Market Watch our GPU report, or our other various reports have probably seen the chart we produced showing the rapid rise and equally rapid decline of graphics chip suppliers in the late 1990s. From 2015, it’s been three companies: AMD, Intel, and Nvidia.
But, in addition to them, there have been nine IP suppliers. And just this year, the population of chip suppliers and IP suppliers has expanded to the point that we now have 13 graphics technology suppliers.
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| Graphics technology suppliers over time |
The expansion has been subtle, and the companies vary in size from a half dozen people to 10,000+
Who are these GPU suppliers? Here’s the list:
| Apple | libre-RISC-V 3D GPU | Qualcomm |
| AMD | Nvidia | RISC-V Graphics |
| ARM | Intel | Think-Silicon |
| DMP | Jingjia Micro | VeriSilicon |
| Imagination Technologies |
Included in the list, AMD, Intel, and Nvidia have two GPUs: an iGPU and a dGPU. AMD’s and Intel’s iGPU are in their x86 processors, and Nvidia’s iGPU is in its Arm-based Tegra processor. So, the 13 suppliers actually offer 16 GPUs.
In addition to the above, there are university projects like the DARPA-funded Hwacha project at Berkeley. (“Hwacha” refers to the multiple rocket launcher from ancient Korea and serves as a pun on the parallel nature of vectors.)
For more information on the RISC-V design check our TechWatch story here.
And for the latest in GPU developments check our quarterly report, Market Watch.