The multinational NVIDIA Corporation (nasdaq: NVDA) ( ) specializes in the manufacture of graphics-processor technologies for workstations, desktop computers, and mobile devices. Based in Santa Clara, California, the company has become a major supplier of integrated circuits (ICs) used for personal-computer motherboard chipsets, graphics processing units (GPUs), and game-consoles. Notable product lines include the GeForce series for gaming and the Quadro series for graphics processing on professional workstations, as well as the nForce series of integrated motherboard-chipsets.

Company history

The company's name, NVIDIA, combines an initial n—a letter often used for mathematical variables—and the root of video—which comes from Latin videre, "to see", thus implying "the best visual experience"Fact: date=September 2007. The company-name appears entirely in upper-case ("NVIDIA") in company technical documentation, although marketing materials and other collateral show less brand-consistency.

The name NVIDIA suggests "envy" (Spanish envidia or in Latin, Italian, or Romanian invidia); and the GeForce 8 series uses the slogan "Green with envy".

Jen-Hsun Huang (the present CEO), Curtis Priem, and Chris Malachowsky co-founded the company in 1993 with venture-capital funding from Sequoia Capital.

In 2000 NVIDIA acquired the intellectual assets of its one-time rival 3dfx, one of the biggest graphics companies of the mid- to late-1990s.

On December 14, 2005, NVIDIA acquired ULI Electronics, which at the time supplied third-party Southbridge parts for chipsets to ATI, NVIDIA's competitor. In March 2006, NVIDIA acquired Hybrid Graphics and on January 5, 2007, it announced that it had completed the acquisition of PortalPlayer, Inc.

In December 2006 NVIDIA, along with its main rival in the graphics industry AMD (which acquired ATI), received subpoenas from the Justice Department regarding possible antitrust violations in the graphics-card industry.

Forbes magazine named NVIDIA its Company of the Year for 2007, citing the accomplishments it made during the said period as well as during the previous 5 years.

In February 2008 NVIDIA acquired Ageia Technologies for an undisclosed sum. "The purchase reflects both companies1 shared goal of creating the most amazing and captivating game experiences", said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and CEO of NVIDIA. "By combining the teams that created the world's most pervasive GPU and physics engine brands, we can now bring GeForce-accelerated PhysX to hundreds of millions of gamers around the world."Fact: date=February 2008 The press-releaseFact: date=April 2008 makes no mention of the acquisition-cost nor of specific products.