Realtek
Encyclopedia : R : RE : REA : Realtek
| |
| Public company (TSE: 2379) | |
| Founded | 1987 |
| Location | Hsinchu, Taiwan |
| Key people | Po-Len Yeh |
| Industry | Semiconductor |
| Products | Integrated circuit semiconductor chips |
| Revenue | 295 million dollars as of 2004 |
| Employees | 970 people as of March 31 2005 |
| Website | [http://www.realtek.com.tw/] |
Realtek Semiconductor Corp. (Traditional Chinese: 瑞昱半導體股份有限公司), a fabless IC design house situated in the Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan, was founded in October 1987, and subsequently approved as a listed company on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1998. During the year of 2004, Realtek achieved an annual sales of 295 million dollars, and as of March 31 2005, Realtek employed 970 people, among which more than 700 were of research and development expertise. Realtek has been constantly ranked, in terms of annual sales, top 10 among the fabless IC design houses based in Taiwan, and in several occasions ranked top 20 worldwide.
Products
Realtek manufactures and sells a wide variety of products throughout the world, and its product lines can be coarsely categorized into two subdivisions: Communications Network ICs, and Computer Peripheral and Multimedia ICs. Among the communications network IC products manufactured and provided by Realtek, included are network interface controllers, both the traditional 10/100M Ethernet controllers and the more advanced Gigabit Ethernet controllers, physical layer controllers (PHYceivers), network switch controllers, gateway controllers, wireless LAN ICs, as well as ADSL router controllers. Particularly, the RTL8139 series 10/100M Fast Ethernet controllers met its height during the late 90’s, and continues to take up a significant, and eventually predominant share in the worldwide market in the following years. For those being categorized as Realtek’s computer peripheral and multimedia IC products, comprised are the traditional AC97 audio codecs, the High Definition audio codecs, card reader controllers, clock generators, IEEE 1394 ICs, and LCD controller.
Most notable Realtek products are 10/100M Ethernet controllers, with a global market share of 70% as of 2003, and AC97 audio codecs, where market share of Realtek is 50%, primarily concentrated at the integrated OEM on-board audio market segment. Presently the ALC850 and RTL8139 are particular OEM favorites, offering low prices, and basic feature sets. RTL8139-based NICs are dubbed "crab cards" in Taiwan, alluding to the crab-like appearance of Realtek logo.
It has been announced or implied, in several different occasions, that Realtek will in the future focus its R&D resources in the fields of digital television technologies, optical storage media, as well as more advanced wireless communications technologies such as ultra-wide band (UWB) communications and the to-be-realized 802.11n standard. It seems clear that Realtek has been setting its eye on pursuing the Holy Grail of the anticipated new applicatons and needs derived from the concept of Digital Home proposed by Intel.
Awards
Realtek's single-chip fast ethernet controller, the RTL8139, receives "Best Component" and "Best of Show" awards at Computex-Taipei '97. Seven years later, its dual-band triple-mode WLAN solutions, which includes a baseband processor/media access controller RTL8185L and an RF chip RTL8255, again receive “Best Choice of Computex” award at Computex-Taipei 2004.
Criticism
Realtek's products have sometimes been met with criticism. From the kernel sources for the FreeBSD operating system:
- The RealTek 8139 PCI NIC redefines the meaning of 'low end.' This is probably the worst PCI ethernet controller ever made, with the possible exception of the FEAST chip made by SMC. The 8139 supports bus-master DMA, but it has a terrible interface that nullifies any performance gains that bus-master DMA usually offers. [...]
- The (newish) Realtek Gigabit Ethernet chips are not too bad at all, and there's lots of documentation. So maybe the Taiwanese products are a little bit later to the market, but they are simpler and robust once they do make it to the market. [...]
See also
External links
- [Realtek official website]
- [List of Realtek network card products]
- [List of Realtek sound card products]
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