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Originally founded in 1989, Prolink Microsystems Corporation is a leading provider of high-end, multimedia solutions. It has a diverse portfolio with product lines that include graphics cards, motherboards and a wide range of multimedia products such as PCI TV cards, PCI expresses, USB TV cards and TV set-top boxes. Carrying out its operations in Taiwan, Prolink delivers products to customers and distribution partners in North America, as well as several countries throughout the continents of Asia and Europe.

The company became publicly listed in 2000, making waves in the industry with its popular Pixel View brand of home entertainment solutions. The Prolink Pixel View line consists of various products that allow users to enjoy television on their desktop or laptop PC. Some of the most successful products from this line have been the PlayTV Cinema and PlayTV Cinema BX2500, hybrid solutions that support both analog and digital TV. These products were beloved for providing users with the ability to watch TV, listen to FM radio, play video games and even capture or record audio – all from a single remote. Pixel View is just one of several of Prolink’s innovative products to perfectly couple artistry with the latest technology. It is such revolutionary solutions that have allowed the company to stay ahead of the competition in the fierce market of high-end multimedia products.

Moving forward, Prolink looks to continuously make improvements by leveraging evolving technologies and maintain its position as a global leader in the multimedia and PC hardware markets. The company is constantly investing in research and development, engineering and technological advancements to further enhance its world renowned brand of PC/TV solutions. Although competition is heavy in the industry, Prolink still aims for the same goal it has from the very beginning: to be the best in the business.

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Headquartered in Taiwan, Leadtek Research is a company that specializes in the designing and manufacturing of graphics cards and various types of computer hardware. The company’s products are essentially categorized into two distinct groups: Computer Group and Communications Group. Some of its most popular products include the WinFast Series of 3D graphics accelerators, which are based on the NVIDIA GeForce line of workstation and enthusiast solutions. Motherboards and multimedia cards are also a part of this group. The Communications Group is compromised of a portfolio that includes surveillance, video telephony and GPS solutions.

This company is known for much more than its high-performance Leadtek graphics cards. In fact, it has been a pioneer in the GPS industry since 1997 and was one of the first to introduce the technology in Taiwan. The millennium was all about innovation, as its Leaktek GPS module became the de facto standard for smart antennas. In 2002, Leadtek introduced the first Bluetooth-enabled GPS receiver and the first SMD module in 2004. These innovations were made possible by its highly successful SiRF Star III chipset series, which featured an entire line of cutting edge solutions. The same year, Leadtek also launched the first GPS receiver with equipped with RDS/TMC functionality to the European market. The company continued to introduce revolutionary solutions in 2005 and 2006 with more advanced series of GPS receivers and antennas.

Leadtek is focused on improving the computer hardware and communications markets through the seamless integration of GPS and multimedia videophony technology. The company also intends on extending its portfolio to include broadband network solutions. Leadtek puts an emphasis on improving life in the home and business setting in an energy efficient manner. This has not only been displayed through its responsible manufacturing practices, but the company’s participation in many new green initiatives with respected environmental organizations.

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Tekram Systems Co. Ltd. is a company that specializes in a broad range of storage solutions. Based in Taiwan, its products are designed to simplify storage deployment and provide scalable solutions that allow businesses to easily upgrade their capacities, enhance performance and data protection to meet their evolving storage needs. An extensive line of SCSI/SATA/USB/1394 host adapters, RAID 6 disk array subsystems and SATA-II RAID 6 host adapters gives organizations a seamless migration path from internal to external storage. Technological innovations such as its S1040 SCSI controller equipped with a bus-mastering enhanced IDE chip have won the company numerous awards over the years. Though still specializing in Tekram controllers, it has recently set focus on other markets with solutions designed for Bluetooth and IrDA devices.

Tekram adapters and controllers are designed to compensate three different storage environments: internal and directed-attached storage, SANs (storage area networks) and NAS (network attached storage). Its largest product line, the internal and direct-attached storage products, include add-on cards, Fibre, RAID, SAS and SATA host adapters and disk array systems as well as high-performance VTL (Virtual Tape Library) storage solutions. The SAN line is geared towards demanding small to medium sized business environments that require storage consolidation for network servers. Its smallest line is targeted at the NAS market, offering solutions that are ideal for department, workgroup and distributed enterprise environments that require storage consolidation for client systems.

Products in the NAS line offer capabilities such as easy installation and administration, sharing of data over heterogeneous client platforms and faster network response times. Offering the best in performance and quality, Tekram storage solutions offer beneficial services to businesses of all sizes.

Moving forward, Tekram plans to continuously deliver innovative products to meet the demands of various storage environments. The company has been around since 1990, surviving the worst and most exciting times of the storage industry. From the looks of things, Tekram is poised to thrive in the market for years to come.

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Headquartered in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan, Silicon Integrated Systems, better known as SiS, is a semiconductor company that specializes in the manufacturing of motherboard chipsets and a wide range of computer components. The company currently leads the industry with its innovative core logic chipsets. For more than 20 years, its products have been implemented in various applications including desktop and notebook PCs, servers, embedded systems, wireless communications devices and digital entertainment products. SIS has demonstrated dominance in the market. In fact, their only serious competitors are industry-leading companies such as Broadcom, Intel and VIA Technologies.

SiS was originally founded in 1987. Thereafter, they established its U.S-based subsidiary in 1992. It was known for many firsts throughout the 1990s, including the SiS5110 Pentium Notebook Chipset in 1996. This revolutionary product was the first of its kind to integrate PCMICA, LCD and graphics chips into a core-logic chipset. In 1998, SiS launched the SiS530, which was the first to integrate 3D graphics into core logic and offer compliancy for the Socket-7 electrical specification. That same year, SiS introduced the SiS620, which was the first in the world to offer 3D graphics on top of compliancy for Celeron and Pentium II motherboards.

The company continued to set trends in the 2000s with the introduction of the SiS650 in 2001, the first Pentium 4 chipset in the world integrated with 256-bit 2D/3D graphics. SiS chipsets embarked on more history as the first to support AMD64 PCI Express platforms in 2005 and the first server reference board in 2006.

SiS is still releasing innovative solutions to the current day, just unveiling the SiS329H in April, 2009, the world’s first H.264 HDTV processor. The company plans to keep providing excellent value through technological innovations, high quality products and outstanding technical support.

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Based in Hong Kong, Sapphire Technology is a company that specializes in the production of graphics cards for workstations and personal computers. It also produces motherboards, TV tuner cards and a line of digital audio players. Sapphire graphics cards are based on industry leading ATI graphics processing units and ATI’s latest IGP chipset technology. As of now, it is the largest provider of ATI-based graphics cards in the world. The company is well known as the first to release cards equipped with an HDMI (high definition multimedia interface) connector.

Sapphire has been a pioneer in visual technologies for more than 10 years, helping to revolutionize how computer graphics are displayed. From the very beginning, it has stayed committed to providing customers with feature-rich, dynamically engineered products. Holding a firm position in the market, the company has been able to continuously achieve excellence with ISO9001 and ISO14001 certified production factories in Dongguan, China. Together, these two facilities manufacture an estimated 1.8 graphics boards each month. With more than 3,000 worldwide employees and offices in Asia, the Americas, Europe and South Africa, Sapphire is well equipped to ensure quality and fast delivery to its global partners and customers.

Every since ATI announced manufacturing and distribution partnerships with ODMs and AiBs in 2001, Sapphire has been the world’s major ATI graphics board supplier, a position it has yet to relinquish despite fierce competition in the industry. For years, Sapphire graphics cards and motherboards have received praise from enthusiasts in virtually every niche market, exceeding industry standards because of their enriched realism, enhanced stability and performance. Leveraging the most recent technological innovations from the ATI brand, the company aims to continue to deliver state of the art solutions for the audience that seeks the best in quality and performance for their mission-critical operations.

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When you install drivers, it’s important that they MATCH the Windows operating system (OS) you have installed on your PC. However, when Microsoft releases a new OS (e.g., Windows 7), it’s impossible for ALL hardware manufacturers to simply comply and have new drivers immediately for the new OS.

To solve this issue – and to prevent that your devices simply stop functioning when you upgrade to a new Windows OS – Microsoft has the Windows Compatibility Mode feature.

1. Right-click the driver you want to install and then select Properties.
2. Select the Compatibility tab.
3. Under Compatibility Mode, click Run this program in compatibility mode for:
4. Click the down arrow and select the Windows version of the driver.

5. Click OK.
6. Install the driver.

Headquartered in Munich, Germany, Qimonda was once a major provider of computer memory. The company was formed when splitting from Infineon Technologies in 2006, which itself was a spin-off division of Siemens AG and still has a stake in the company. It sells Aeneon-branded memory products to retail markets and uses the Qimonda brand for its OEM customers. Some of its clients have included Dell and Hewlett Packard, while most of its sales originated in the Asia Pacific and North American markets.

At the time, it was said to be the second largest DRAM company in the world and a top supplier of memory products for the personal computer and server markets. In its glory days, the company had an estimated 13,500 worldwide employees, including nearly 1,800 in research and development with access to multiple R&D facilities and manufacturing sites spanning three continents.

The successful run for Qimonda DRAM products was short to say the least. Starting in 2008, the price of DRAM declined steadily due to an oversupply on the market. This in turn resulted in significant financial losses. In October of 2008, the company announced major changes in order to reduce losses and reposition itself in the struggling DRAM business. Qimonda signed on for a joint venture with Nanya Technology and also shut down one of its sites in Richmond, Virginia, an R&D facility in Raleigh, North Carolina and a major location back in Dresden. Lacking resources and capital, its situation worsened, leading to reports that the company had filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February of 2009.

Despite an EETimes report starting that Qimonda DRAM products were no longer in production, the company has released statements that it is still in existence and looking for “fresh capital.” Unfortunately, without anyone interested in making an acquisition or investing in the company, the future of Qimonda appears quite bleak.

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Founded in 1997, LifeView is a subsidiary of the graphics solutions and multimedia specialist Animations Technologies Incorporated. The headquarters in Fremont, California serves as the company’s U.S. headquarters and is responsible for handling all sales, marketing and customer support activities in both North and South America.

LifeView encompasses three major product lines: the USB video capture series, the PC Camera series and the Fly Video/Capture Series, each of which are designed to support desktop and portable video, imaging, multimedia and other applications. The award-winning LifeView line has consisted of many industry firsts, with products geared for major PC interfaces that include CardBus, PCI, Mini PCI, PCI Express, ExpressCard and USB products.

One of the most successful lines to be released is its premium certified Vista tuners, such as the LifeView FlyTV ExpressCard M5. Launched in 2007, this dual hybrid TV tuner provides notebook users with true PIP viewing capabilities on any two channels at the same time, be it analog or digital. Unlike competing hardware, the LifeView Express solutions were among the first to allow the viewing of two digital television channels simultaneously on different transport streams. Another standout feature of the FlyTV Express card series is the ability to record one program while viewing another. These solutions were also some of the first to offer seamless compatibility on Microsoft Windows Vista.

Established in 1990, the parent company, Animation Technologies Incorporated, is an industry leader and one of the pioneers in the development and manufacturing of multimedia and video capturing technology. Headquartered in Taiwan, the company is dedicated to developing and marketing innovative multimedia and video solutions that suit the needs of customers in the consumer, corporate and OEM markets. Animation Technologies is backed by an expert R&D team, along with a knowledgeable management staff, that allows it to deliver cutting edge video capturing solutions.

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Founded in1988, Palit Microsystems is a leading manufacturer of innovative, high-performance motherboards and graphics accelerators. As one of the major providers of PC components, the company has a wide variety of award-winning products based on industry-leading NVIDIA and ATI chipsets. With headquarters in Hong Kong, branch offices in Germany and Taiwan, and factories in Mainline China, it has established a global network to meet the demanding needs of the PC hardware market. Banking off the overwhelming success of Palit graphics cards in both Asia and Europe, the company recently started operations in the Americas with a Palit Multimedia division based in Toronto, Canada.

Palit has an award-winning history in the development and manufacturing of PC graphics cards. For over 20 years, it has been marketing products under its worldwide brands, such as Gainward and XpertVision, two companies it acquired to strengthen its overall presence in the market.

Some of its most successful products have been based on the ATI Radeon HD 2600 and 2400 series, solutions that deliver rich experiences to entry-level customers, home entertainment users, and enthusiast gamers who desire high-performance graphics. Palit has proven its commitment to quality and reliability with state of the art R&D facilities, as well ISO 9001 manufacturing certification and Microsoft’s WHQL certification. Palit graphics cards are a big hit on the market and are currently sold through select vendors, such as TigerDirect, Ingram Micro and Newegg.

As one of the most recognizable names in the business, Palit strives to continuously invest in the best design and manufacturing practices to meet the requirements of its customers. It aims to achieve these goals by leveraging an infrastructure designed with the type of flexibility that allows for seamless adjustments. Already a household name, it just may be safe to assume that Palit will maintain its leading position in the video card industry.

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Founded in 1982, Number Nine Visual Technology Corporation was one of the pioneers and a leading provider in high-performance visual technology products. Its portfolio included graphics accelerator subsystems, graphics chips and a range of productivity-enhancing software solutions. The company’s display adapters were highly regarded for bringing state of the art functionality to the market. At one time, Number Nine was very profitable with headquarters in Lexington, Massachusetts along with R&D facilities, sales and marketing offices in Germany, Munich and Redmond, Washington.

This company is well known for its Number Nine Apple Booster, originally released in 1982 as one of the first graphics accelerator for the Apple II line of computers. The hardware featured a 50-pin slot card, 64 KB onboard RAM and 3.58 MHz of speed. Notoriety from the influential Apple system pushed Number Nine graphics cards into the mainstream and led to many cutting edge releases. In 1994, the company delivered the first 128-bit graphics accelerator followed up by the first 256-color and 16.8 million-color cards. These products were a part of three successful lines of 128-bit graphics chips and boards. The company wowed the industry in the late 1990s with its award-winning Number Nine Ticket to Ride product line. The fourth and final generation was a 128-bit fully integrated 2D/3D MPEG graphics coprocessor compatible with Windows 95, 98, NT and Macintosh systems. Despite its long-running success, heavy competition in the graphics card business and financial strife eventually drove Number Nine to bankruptcy.

In 1999, Number Nine’s assets were acquired by S3 Corporation, who subsequently sold its manufacturing rights to Frank Bruno and Jim Macleod, members of the company’s original engineering team. Bruno and Macleod went on to form Silicon Spectrum, a company that supplies FPGA graphics solutions for Windows and Linux platforms. As of now, Number Nine graphics accelerators no longer supported though driver downloads are available on numerous third-party sites.

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