Perhaps the most inactive graphics company in the industry, Matrox Graphics, recently said it might release a PCI Express product by year-end or later. The information corresponds earlier released facts about activities of the privately-owned company headquartered in Dorval (Quebec), Canada.

“We do intend on releasing products that will fit the PCI Express architecture, but it likely will not be until the end of Q4 [2004] at the earliest. Keep checking our site regularly to see which product lines will be announced to support PCI Express,” said Shawn Black, Inbound Sales Representative, Matrox Graphics.

In early 2004 Matrox Graphics acquired a license to use nSys PCI Express nVS verification tools for use in its chip design efforts from Netsys Software. Matrox engineers have been using PCI Express nVS product to verify the correct operation of the PCI Express interface in its chip designs since then. The tool is intended to help Matrox Graphics’ engineers to catch potential bugs during pre-silicon verification.

In late 2003 representatives for Matrox Graphics said a “new product” was slated to release in 2004.

To address the market of Windows Longhorn computers, Matrox Graphics will not only have to add PCI Express x16 into its products just in order to create solutions compliant with tomorrow’s personal computers, but will also have to incorporate hardware Pixel Shader 2.0 to be fully compliant with the upcoming operating system.

Things have been quiet at Matrox Graphics for more than two years now after the firm released its Parhelia visual processing unit. The part became a breakthrough neither in terms of features nor performance, though, was the first relatively affordable graphics card for PCs supporting up to three displays. In 2003 Matrox Graphics released more Parhelia technology-based offerings for 2D professional market, but these parts did not attract a lot of attention of the industry. Nevertheless, there are some more products being developed at Matrox Graphics that is now primarily focused on professional 2D graphics cards for engineers and designers.

Matrox Graphics is a subsidiary of Matrox Electronic Systems that is involved in digital video, imaging, medical and computer graphics solution businesses.