Sapphire Technology () is a
Hong Kong
Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...
-based technology company, founded in 2001, which produces
graphics cards for
personal computer
A personal computer (PC) is a multi-purpose microcomputer whose size, capabilities, and price make it feasible for individual use. Personal computers are intended to be operated directly by an end user, rather than by a computer expert or tec ...
s and
workstation
A workstation is a special computer designed for technical or scientific applications. Intended primarily to be used by a single user, they are commonly connected to a local area network and run multi-user operating systems. The term ''workstat ...
s,
motherboards,
TV tuner card
A TV tuner card is a kind of television tuner that allows television signals to be received by a computer. Most TV tuners also function as video capture cards, allowing them to record television programs onto a hard disk much like the digital v ...
s,
digital audio player
A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored o ...
s and
LCDTVs
Sapphire's products are based on
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
graphics processing unit
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, m ...
s, and both
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
(
ATI) and
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...
motherboard chipset
In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components in one or more integrated circuits known as a "Data Flow Management System" that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. It is usually found on the mo ...
technology. The company is the largest supplier of
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
-based video cards in the world.
['Welcome to the SAPPHIRE Family' at Sapphiretech.com](_blank)
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Sapphire was the first company to release a video card with a high definition multimedia interface (HDMI
High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controlle ...
) connector.
Sapphire was the first company to release a video card having clock speed
In computing, the clock rate or clock speed typically refers to the frequency at which the clock generator of a processor can generate pulses, which are used to synchronize the operations of its components, and is used as an indicator of the pro ...
of 1000 MHz (1 GHz) with the release of the Sapphire Atomic Edition HD 4890.
Manufacturing facilities
As of 2007, Sapphire has two ISO 9001
The ISO 9000 family is a set of five quality management systems (QMS) standards that help organizations ensure they meet customer and other stakeholder needs within statutory and regulatory requirements related to a product or service. ISO ...
and ISO 14001-certified manufacturing facilities in Dongguan, China
Dongguan (; ) is a prefecture-level city in central Guangdong Province, China. An important industrial city in the Pearl River Delta, Dongguan borders the provincial capital of Guangzhou to the north, Huizhou to the northeast, Shenzhen to the so ...
, which have a monthly production capacity of 1.8 million video cards.
The manufacturing facility had an area of about 250,000 m2 used by 16 independent production lines as of May 2005.
Manufacturing process
Sapphire buys printed circuit boards (PCB) from an external contractor, but they place components on the PCB and reflow them in their own factories. AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...
GPUs have historically been used in their products.
Gallery
11127-45 HD3650 1GHM512MBDDR2 PCIE C02.jpg, Radeon HD 3650
ATI HD4870.JPG, Radeon HD 4870
Sapphire Radeon HD 5450-front oblique PNrĀ°0383.jpg, Radeon HD 5450
Sapphire Radeon R9 290X-front oblique PNrĀ°0436.jpg, Radeon R9 290X
References
External links
*{{official website, http://www.sapphiretech.com/
2001 establishments in Hong Kong
Graphics hardware companies
Motherboard companies
Electronics companies of Hong Kong
Hong Kong brands