ATI Celebrates Twenty Years Anniversary

by Anton Shilov
08/19/2005 | 11:47 PM

The world’s largest supplier of graphics processors, ATI Technologies, is celebrating its twenty year anniversary.

On August 20, 1985 – ATI – or Array Technology Inc. as it was first known – was incorporated by K.Y. Ho, Benny Lau and Lee Lau, who all were from Hong Kong. Over the next five months after the establishment, the name was changed twice more: first to Array Technologies Inc. and then to its current name of ATI Technologies Inc. on December 18, 1985. The company originally produced integrated graphics chips for computer makers. But two years after its establishment the firm became a real retailer of graphics cards, selling its EGA Wonder and VGA Wonder products under ATI trademark.

The first discrete products from ATI offered better feature-set compared to graphics adapters by companies like IBM, which set the direction for the company’s evolution.

In November of 1993, ATI became a public company, trading first on the Toronto Stock Exchange. In April of 1998, ATI was ranked as the market share leader in the graphics industry by the International Data Corporation (IDC). In November of 1998, K.Y. Ho, ATI’s President and CEO, was selected Canada’s Entrepreneur of the Year, and two months later he was selected one of the top 25 business leaders in the world by Business Week Magazine.

In July of 1999, ATI topped the $1 billion mark in annual sales for the first time. Less than one year later, ATI launched its well-known RADEON graphics chip. In January of 2002, ATI entered the wireless market with the release of IMAGEON 100. The company’s success continued, and in December of 2003, ATI was added to the NASDAQ-100 Index.

Now ATI employs over 3300 people worldwide and generates revenues of about $2 billions yearly.