ATI boss predicts chipset market consolidation

THE CEO of ATI said that in a couple of years time there will be only two chipset firms in business - his firm and Nvidia.

Dave Orton, speaking to the INQ at a partner conference in Jerez, Spain, obviously wasn't counting Intel, but talking about third party chipset firms.

He said that while both Nvidia and ATI had had their problems with implementing chipsets, those difficulties were now more or less resolved. Customers, including motherboard makers, would welcome such a move, he said. "Only ATI and Nvidia should be in the IGP business," he said. The challenge for third party chipset manufacturers like Via and SIS was they had to invent their integrated graphics for their chipsets. For ATI, he said, "that is a natural business".

However, Orton's view isn't necessarily endorsed by his partners. One customer, speaking on conditions of anonymity, said that it was highly unlikely a firm like SIS, owned by major foundry UMC, would disappear. SIS had chipsets which were very appealing to mobo makers and customers, he said.

A bigger problem is the number of SKUs (stock keeping units) that distributors had to take account of. With wafer thin margins, slight differences to the SKU made it difficult for distie salesforces to make their sale in just a few minutes.

He also said that the lead free directives being implemented in Europe this summer caused some duplication of SKUs which made life that much harder for distributors. µ

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