Diamond Multimedia
| Diamond Multimedia
|
|
|---|---|
 |
|
| legal form | Corporation |
| Seat | Chatsworth , United States |
| Branch | Computer, hardware |
Diamond Multimedia was a company listed on the NASDAQ under DIMD and headquartered in Chatsworth , California , which mainly produced graphics cards and modems for the PC market in the 1990s by installing semiconductors from other manufacturers on printed circuit boards and corresponding basic drivers further developed.
Well-known products included the Viper graphics cards based on the Riva semiconductors from NVIDIA and the graphics cards with 3D acceleration called Monster based on the Voodoo chipsets from 3dfx . There were also the sound cards Monster Sound and SonicImpact in the program.
The product portfolio was supplemented by a larger selection of modems under the brand name Supra and the video frame grabber cards ChrunchIt and DTV , which were available in a bundle with Supra video phone kit , among other things .
At professional developers who directed FireGL graphics cards that through the acquisition of Spea Software , Starnberg came into the program and, among others, with a Permedia chipset in the version of 3DLabs were stocked. Based on this brand name, a SCSI controller called FirePort was realized, which was available in versions up to 40 MB / s and was also based on semiconductors from another company, namely Symbios .
With the brand name Rio Diamond began as a pioneer to develop the market for portable MP3 players .
Diamond Multimedia was only able to show profits in the quarterly reports in view of the intensifying competition in the course of the Asian crisis and merged in 1999 with the semiconductor manufacturer S3 . The company, renamed SONICblue in 2000 , mainly shifted to the production of consumer electronics such as MP3 players (Rio series). For the development of the FireGL series, graphics chips from the IBM workstation line were temporarily used, and in addition to Windows drivers, Linux drivers and drivers for HP-UX were made available before this part of the company was taken over by ATI (now AMD ) , whose semiconductor series was converted and, after a few years, was transferred to the core centers of this group in North America, at least in terms of name. In March 2003, SONICblue filed for bankruptcy.
The former Rio division was sold and now operates as Digital Networks North America (DNNA) under the umbrella of the Japanese D&M Holding . It has added hi-fi devices to its product range . The market share is, however, rather small due to the strong competition in the MP3 player sector and the DVD player market. On July 20, 2015, the company filed for bankruptcy and ceased operations.
In 2003, the rights to the brand were following the insolvency of Sonic Blue Diamond Multimedia to the company Best Data sold.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ replaytv: replaytv news. Digital Networks North America, Inc., accessed October 25, 2019 .