Full Description

NVIDIA Corporation (NVIDIA), incorporated in April 1993, is a provider of visual computing technologies and the inventor of the graphic processing unit (GPU), a processor, which generates graphics on workstations, personal computers, game consoles and mobile devices. The Company’s products are designed to generate realistic, interactive graphics on consumer and professional computing devices. It serves the entertainment and consumer market with its GeForce graphics products, the professional design and visualization market with its Quadro graphics products, the computing market with its Tesla computing solutions products, and the handheld computing market with its Tegra computer-on-a-chip products. It has four product-line segments: the GPU Business, the professional solutions business (PSB), the media and communications processor (MCP) business, and the consumer products business (CPB). On February 10, 2008, NVIDIA acquired Ageia Technologies, Inc.

The Company’s GPU business consists of its GeForce products that support desktop and notebook personal computers (PCs), plus memory products. Its PSB consists of its NVIDIA Quadro professional workstation products and other professional graphics products, including its NVIDIA Tesla computing products. The Company’s MCP business consists of nForce core logic and motherboard GPU (mGPU) products. The Company’s CPB comprises of the Tegra and GoForce mobile brands and products that support netbooks, personal navigation devices (PNDs), handheld personal media players (PMPs), personal digital assistants (PDAs), cellular phones and other handheld devices. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), original design manufacturers (ODMs), add-in-card manufacturers, system builders and consumer electronics companies worldwide utilize NVIDIA processors as a core component of their entertainment, business and professional solutions.

GPU Business

The Company’s GPU Business is focused on Microsoft Windows and Apple PC platforms. GeForce GPUs power PCs made by or distributed by virtually every PC OEMs worldwide in desktop PCs, notebook PCs, PCs loaded with Windows Media Center and media extenders, such as the Apple television. GPUs enhance the user experience for playing video games, editing photos, viewing and editing videos and high-definition (HD) movies. The combination of the programmable Unified Shader GPU with Microsoft Corporation’s (Microsoft’s), DirectX 10 high-level shading language is known as DirectX 10 GPUs.

The GeForce GTX 280 and 260 GPU products that it launched, during fiscal year ended January 25, 2009 (fiscal 2009), represent the second-generation of the Company’s unified architecture. Other significant product launches, during fiscal year 2009, included the GeForce 9600 GT; GeForce 9800 GX2, which provides a new dual GPU board featuring quad scalable link interface (SLI) technology, and the GeForce 9800 GTX, which is a GPU that supports both two-way and three-way SLI technology. NVIDIA also launched the GeForce GTX 295 and GeForce GTX 285, which were designed based on compute unified device architecture (CUDA) technology.

Professional Solutions Business

The Quadro family consists of the NVIDIA Quadro Plex Visual Computing System (VCS), Quadro FX, Quadro CX and the Quadro Night Vision Systems (NVS), professional workstation processors. Quadro products are certified by several software developers for professional workstation applications and are designed to deliver the graphics performance and precision required by professional applications.

During fiscal year 2009, the Company launched several new Quadro solutions. These included the Quadro FX 3600M Professional and the Quadro Plex D Series. It also launched five new Quadro FX notebook GPUs and Quadro CX. During fiscal year 2009, NVIDIA also launched the Tesla C1060 computing processor and the Tesla S1070 computing system.

MCP Business

The Company’s nForce and GeForce mGPU families of products address the core logic market. Core logic is the computer’s central nervous system, controlling and directing high speed data between the central processing unit (CPU), the GPU, storage and networks. In fiscal year 2009, the Company launched the GeForce 9400M mGPU along with Apple Inc. (Apple) for their new lineup of Mac notebooks. The GeForce 9400M integrates three complex chips, which are the northbridge, the input-output network processor and the GeForce GPU into a single chip.

Consumer Products Business

The CPB business includes license, royalty, other revenue and associated costs related to video game consoles and other digital consumer electronics devices. During fiscal year 2009, the Company launched the NVIDIA Tegra APX 2500 computer-on-a-chip. The NVIDIA Tegra APX 2500 is a computer-on-a-chip designed to meet the multimedia demands of mobile phone and entertainment user. In addition, the Company also launched the NVIDIA Tegra 600 and 650 products, which are integrated visual computer-on-a-chip products.

The Company competes with AMD, Broadcom Corporation, Silicon Integrated Systems, Inc., VIA Technologies, Inc., Intel, Matrox Electronics Systems Ltd., Fujitsu Limited, Imagination Technologies Ltd., ARM Holdings plc, Marvell Technology Group Ltd, NEC Corporation, Qualcomm Incorporated, Renesas Technology, Samsung, Seiko-Epson, Texas Instruments Incorporated, Toshiba America, Inc., Broadcom, Freescale Semiconductor Inc., Renesas Technology and ST Microelectronics.