A graphics company is born

Electronic News, Feb 23, 1998 by Peter Brown

On view that every PC will go 3-D, Xtar and Pico veterans charge ahead

Federal Way, Wash.--Graphics accelerator start-up Silicon Reality Inc. (SRI), based here, has taken on a seemingly gigantic task. It plans to come to market with a 3-D graphics alternative to challenge the 30-plus entrenched graphics IC manufacturers, as well as the top two semiconductor chipmakers in the industry, Intel and NEC, which have both made serious waves in the graphics market in the last two weeks (EN, Feb. 16).

George Saul, president and CEO of SRI, doesn't view the already crowded field as a problem. In an exclusive interview with Electronic News, Mr. Saul said, "The 3-D market is going to be huge and no doubt in every PC. I think multiple players are going to be needed to supply the demand.

"Intel is no threat to us because we are going after a different market. I also think the business is not based on the Intels and S3s of the world but more on the small companies who have good, flexible next generation technology that blows everyone's mind when you see it. That is where the real innovation lies--not with these big conglomerates."

Mr. Saul is a veteran of the original Fairchild Semiconductor and, later, National Semiconductor and Hitachi. He is joined at the new firm by Terry Coleman, who founded Pico and is a co-founder, VP and chief architect at SRI; Steve Tibbitts, co-founder, and VP of R&D; and Tom Atchison, VP of operations.

According to Jon Peddie Associates (JPA), a market research firm based in Tiburon, Calif., the 3-D graphics chip market will grow to $2 billion by the year 2000, up from $100 million in 1996. Within this market, nearly 100 percent of all PCs--including workstations--will have 3-D capability by that time, according to JPA.

SRI was formed when members of two companies--Xtar and Pico--developed ideas for a 3-D graphics engine. Xtar specializes in flight simulation for the aviation industry while Pico focuses on VLSI circuit design. In 1994, members of both companies combined their efforts to form SRI. Currently, the company employs 15 people but Mr. Saul projects it will recruit seven more by the end of the year. Most recently, the company hired industry veterans Semyon Nisenzon as VP of software engineering and Tom Atchison as VP of operations.

SRI initially began its operations using funding derived from licensing and development fees. The company recently went outside for investment, however, for the first time since its inception in 1994. David Sun, co-founder of Kingston Technology, recently acquired by SoftBank, invested privately in the company and is currently the only outside investor.

"Toward the end of April we will be having a second round of financing for SRI," said Mr. Saul. "This will more than likely be a combination of venture capitalists, private placement and corporate institution financing."

First Silicon

Silicon Reality recently achieved first silicon with its first generation product, dubbed Tantrum (as in temper), and plans are being laid for a formal introduction in the second half of this year. And the company has lined up LG Semicon as a foundry partner to manufacture Tantrum.

Tantrum is based on the company's proprietary Texture-mapped, Anti-aliasing, Z-buffer (TAZ) core technology that combines 3-D graphics, video processing and 2-D graphics at varying price points targeted at the mainstream PC market. Tantrum will utilize one 64-megabit Rambus channel and feature 3 million polygons per second performance, Mr. Saul claims. He predicts the price of the device will be one-fourth that of companies utilizing a 24MB implementation. Tantrum will support 66MHz PCI and AGP 2x, added Mr. Saul. In addition, SRI plans to reach first silicon with its second generation graphics accelerator, targeted at the NT workstation business, within 60 days. Mr. Saul said SRI was awarded a contract for the graphics accelerator--which is also based on the company's TAZ 3-D technology and a Rambus interface--by an unnamed major Japanese company. The agreement provides capital for development and access to this Japanese company's fab facilities. The second generation TAZ device is also planned for introduction sometime in 2H98.

Silicon Reality is currently in the early design stages for its third generation product and the company hopes that will be taped out by the end of this year. Mr. Saul declined to comment about the details of the third generation TAZ accelerator.

And what about the so-called segment zero PC? "Someone could adapt the TAZ for the sub-$1,000 market because it is flexible for that area but it is more geared toward the higher end of the market. If someone were to bring it to segment zero I would think a lot of features would be missing," said Mr. Saul.

SRI's first two generations of products will support Intel's x86 architecture. However, the company plans to migrate to non-x86 architectures for its future generations of graphics ICs including processors from Integrated Device Technology (IDT), Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) and Advanced RISC Machines (ARM).