Tseng Labs

Tseng Laboratories, Inc. ( better known as Tseng Labs, Inc. ) was a manufacturer of graphics processors headquartered in Newton, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1983 by Jack Tseng, the company was active until 1997.

History

In 1983, Tseng Labs ET1000 based on the graphics chip monochrome screen map UltraPak out. The processors were up to 128- bitigen ET6000 (1995), further developed. This was, together with the ET4000 between 1991 and 1995 to the most famous VGA chips of the Windows 3.x era. The ET4000 family was known in particular for their, despite the graphics DRAM memory used, unusually high ( ISA) throughput.

Tseng was the shakeout on the graphics card sector mid-1990 to the victim and lost market share to S3 and ATI. In particular, by integrating a RAMDACs in their products Tseng could not catch up to the ET6000. In the late years of the ET4000 This evolved into a significant competitive disadvantage.

Due to difficulties in the procurement of memory (special MDRAM ) and lack of funding to develop a modern 3D accelerator processor, plans for a map of the next generation were discarded. Instead, the cash should be consolidated and that a sale will be targeted. However, this resulted in an attempt at a particularly progressive ( multi-processor ) solution: The graphics card manufacturer Video Logic combined on a map the Tseng- chip with the powerful PowerVR chip from NEC ( and also partly still a sound chip ). This solution, however, was not accepted by the market.

Also because of these circumstances, Jack Tseng resigned in September 1997. In December 1997, the rights to the most Tseng technologies were bought by ATI, ATI took over the production facility in Newton, as well as 40 employees. The Tseng management decided to use the current income and cash reserves to invest in a startup company. In the summer of 1998, the remaining company was merged with the pharmaceutical manufacturers Cell Pathways.

• Examples of graphics cards with known Tseng chips

Tseng ET4000 video card with ISA connection

Tseng ET4000/W32p with VLB port, the graphics memory is shown on the left third of the graphics card

Graphics card with Tseng ET6000 and 2 MB MDRAM as graphics memory ( expandable to 4 MB through two PLCC socket )