Oak Technology was an American supplier of
semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. ...
chips for sound cards, graphics cards and optical storage devices such as
CD-ROM,
CD-RW
CD-RW (Compact Disc-Rewritable) is a digital optical disc storage format introduced in 1997. A CD-RW compact disc (CD-RWs) can be written, read, erased, and re-written.
CD-RWs, as opposed to CDs, require specialized readers that have sensi ...
and
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...
. It achieved success with optical storage chips and its stock price increased substantially around the time of the tech bubble in 2000.
After falling on hard times, in 2003 it was acquired by
Zoran Corporation
Zoran Corporation was a multinational digital technology company, founded in 1981 and headquartered in Silicon Valley, that was predominantly focused on designing and selling SoC (System on a Chip) integrated circuits for consumer electronics ...
.
Oak Technology helped develop the
ATAPI standard and provided the ''oakcdrom.sys''
CD-ROM driver that was ubiquitous on
DOS
DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems.
DOS may also refer to:
Computing
* Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel
* Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...
-based systems in the mid-1990s.
History
Oak Technology, Inc. was founded in 1987 and was based in Sunnyvale, California, United States. During the late 1980s through the early 1990s, Oak was a supplier of PC graphics (
SVGA
Super VGA (SVGA) is a broad term that covers a wide range of computer display standards that extended IBM's VGA specification.
When used as shorthand for a resolution, as VGA and XGA often are, SVGA refers to a resolution of 800×600.
History
I ...
) chipsets and PCBs. Oak Technology also supplied motherboard chipsets – a PS/2-compatible chipset and the Oaknote chipset for notebooks. Oak enjoyed modest success in the value segment (low-end) of the market, but without an effective Windows accelerator, ultimately failed to remain competitive.
In 1994,
Sun Microsystems decided to change the name of their new language from ''
Oak
An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' (; Latin "oak tree") of the beech family, Fagaceae. There are approximately 500 extant species of oaks. The common name "oak" also appears in the names of species in related genera, notably ''L ...
'' to ''
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's mos ...
'' because ''Oak'' was already trademarked by Oak Technology.
The company had a dominant position early on in the market for semiconductors for CD-ROM drives (around 1995) and later regained a prominent position in optical storage chips as the market transitioned to recordable/rewritable technology, resulting in substantial revenue growth and stock price appreciation at the height of the tech bubble in 2000.
However, the company could not maintain growth and the stock price declined substantially, including a drop by more than half on 19 June 2002.
It then acquired the pioneering digital TV chip company Teralogic at the end of 2002 whose technology would later contribute to Zoran's DTV chip development after Zoran acquired Oak Technology in 2003.
Graphics products
![OTI037C](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/OTI037C.jpg)
OTI037C - 8-bit VGA chipset, with up to 256KB of DRAM. Provided support for VGA, EGA & CGA display modes. Most are only able to do standard VGA modes.
(i.e. up to 320×200×256 and up to 640×480×16).
OTI057/067 - ISA SVGA chipsets. Supports up to 512KB of DRAM (usually 70/80 ns).
OTI077 - Enhanced version of the OTI067. Includes support for 1MB and up to 65 MHz dot clock. Capable of resolutions up to 1024×768×256 colors in non-interlaced mode, and up to 1280×1024×16 colors interlaced.
![Diamond Viper VLB Video card](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/44/Diamond_Viper_VLB_Video_card.jpg)
OTI087 - One of the first
VLB chipsets available. Has a 16-bit external data path, and a 32-bit internal memory controller data path. It features an improved, local-bus compatible host interface controller with read and write caching capabilities similar to those implemented on
Tseng ET4000AX graphics chips, along with register-based color expansion, 16-bit graphic latch and some other new (for its time) features. Maximum BIOS resolutions are 1024x768x256 non-interlaced and 1280×1024×256 interlaced. Maximum dot clock is 80 MHz, but is usually coupled with the OTI068 clock generator capable of frequencies up to 78 MHz. This chipset supports up to 2MB of 70/70R ns DRAM.
A modified version, OTI087X, added a hardware mouse cursor sprite. It was implemented on many
Weitek
Weitek Corporation was an American chip-design company that originally focused on floating-point units for a number of commercial CPU designs. During the early to mid-1980s, Weitek designs could be found powering a number of high-end designs ...
P9000-based graphics boards as a companion VGA controller; unfortunately, on these boards the chip was typically configured with a narrow 8-bit data path to its own dedicated VGA memory, resulting in sub-par VGA mode performance.
Spitfire - OTI 64105/64107 - 64-bit DRAM chipset. Provides 2D/GUI acceleration features comparable to other 64-bit accelerators of its time.
Spitfire - OTI 64111 - 64-bit PCI/ISA 2D chipset with integrated 135 MHz RAMDAC. DRAM and EDO supported.
Eon - OTI 64217 - Supports
EDO and
SGRAM
Synchronous dynamic random-access memory (synchronous dynamic RAM or SDRAM) is any DRAM where the operation of its external pin interface is coordinated by an externally supplied clock signal.
DRAM integrated circuits (ICs) produced from the ea ...
. PCI chipset, 64-bit memory bus.
Warp 5 - OTI 64317
- During the late 1990s, Oak was developing their first and only 2D/3D
graphics accelerator
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mob ...
chip. Warp 5 was to be a tile-based deferred renderer (TBDR), similar to
PowerVR's chipsets. In the same vein as the
S3 ViRGE
The S3 ViRGE (Video and Rendering Graphics Engine) graphics chipset was one of the first 2D/ 3D accelerators designed for the mass market.
Introduced in 1995 by then graphics powerhouse S3, Inc., the ViRGE was S3's first foray into 3D-graphics. ...
chip, the Warp 5 was
pin-compatible
In electronics, pin-compatible devices are electronic components, generally integrated circuits or expansion cards, sharing a common footprint and with the same functions assigned or usable on the same pins. Pin compatibility is a property des ...
with a 2D-only predecessor. The chip was never released because
ATI
Ati or ATI may refer to:
* Ati people, a Negrito ethnic group in the Philippines
**Ati language (Philippines), the language spoken by this people group
** Ati-Atihan festival, an annual celebration held in the Philippines
*Ati language (China), a ...
acquired the technology. It was Oak's final mainstream graphics chip development effort.
This graphics processor was based on a region concept and had many similarities to
Microsoft's Talisman architecture. The chip processed each region at a time and did on chip z-sorting and
anti-aliasing Anti-aliasing may refer to any of a number of techniques to combat the problems of aliasing in a sampled signal such as a digital image or digital audio recording.
Specific topics in anti-aliasing include:
* Anti-aliasing filter, a filter used be ...
. As a result, the chip did 24-bit
floating point
In computing, floating-point arithmetic (FP) is arithmetic that represents real numbers approximately, using an integer with a fixed precision, called the significand, scaled by an integer exponent of a fixed base. For example, 12.345 can b ...
Z,
sub-pixel anti-aliasing, order independent
translucency
In the field of optics, transparency (also called pellucidity or diaphaneity) is the physical property of allowing light to pass through the material without appreciable scattering of light. On a macroscopic scale (one in which the dimensions ...
, non-linear fogging and atmospheric effects and
MIP-Mapping. Typically, such region based architectures are gated by the number of
polygons
In geometry, a polygon () is a plane figure that is described by a finite number of straight line segments connected to form a closed ''polygonal chain'' (or ''polygonal circuit''). The bounded plane region, the bounding circuit, or the two to ...
that can be processed per region, but Oak claimed that there were no such limitations in the WARP 5.
The specifications included:
* 50m
pixels
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device.
In most digital display devices, pixels are the sm ...
/sec (all features turned on)
*
EDO and
SGRAM
Synchronous dynamic random-access memory (synchronous dynamic RAM or SDRAM) is any DRAM where the operation of its external pin interface is coordinated by an externally supplied clock signal.
DRAM integrated circuits (ICs) produced from the ea ...
Memory Supported - 8 MB
* On-chip
Texture Cache
This is a glossary of terms relating to computer graphics.
For more general computer hardware terms, see glossary of computer hardware terms.
0–9
A
B
...
* 2D
GUI
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...
acceleration
* Video Scaling in Y
* VBI support Including Intercast
* 220 MHz
RAMDAC
A random-access memory digital-to-analog converter (RAMDAC) is a combination of three fast digital-to-analog converters (DACs) with a small static random-access memory (SRAM) used in computer graphics display controllers or video cards to store th ...
* Resolutions to 1600 × 1200
*
Direct3D and
BRender
Argonaut Games PLC was a British video game developer founded in 1982, most notable for the development of the Super NES video game ''Star Fox'' and its supporting Super FX hardware, as well as for developing '' Croc: Legend of the Gobbos'' and ...
API
An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...
s supported
* OS support
Windows 95
Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...
and
Windows NT
Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system.
The first version of Win ...
* Packaging - 256 pin
BGA
*
Pin Compatibility
In electronics, pin-compatible devices are electronic components, generally integrated circuits or expansion cards, sharing a common footprint and with the same functions assigned or usable on the same pins. Pin compatibility is a property desi ...
with OAK OTI-74217 EON 2D GUI accelerator
Optical storage products
Oak sold millions of chip solutions for CD-ROM, CD-R/RW, DVD-ROM and DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo drives, primarily for the PC market.
References
External links
Official website (archived)
{{Commons category
1987 establishments in California
2003 disestablishments in California
American companies established in 1987
American companies disestablished in 2003
Companies based in Sunnyvale, California
Computer companies established in 1987
Computer companies disestablished in 2003
Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area
Defunct semiconductor companies of the United States
Graphics hardware companies
Technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area