This article is about Silicon Graphics, Inc. For the company that acquired its assets, see Silicon Graphics International.
Silicon Graphics, Inc.
Company type
Public
Traded as
NYSE: SGI OTC Pink: SGID.pk Nasdaq: SGIC
Industry
Computer hardware and software
Founded
November 9, 1981; 42 years ago (1981-11-09) Mountain View, California, U.S.[1]
Defunct
May 11, 2009; 15 years ago (2009-05-11)
Fate
Chapter 11 bankruptcy; assets acquired by Rackable Systems, which renamed itself Silicon Graphics International Corp.
Headquarters
Sunnyvale, California, U.S.
Key people
Jim Clark Wei Yen Kurt Akeley Ed McCracken Thomas Jermoluk Marc Hannah Rick Belluzzo
Products
High-performance computing, visualization and storage
Silicon Graphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as Silicon Graphics Computer Systems or SGCS) was an American high-performance computing manufacturer, producing computer hardware and software. Founded in Mountain View, California in November 1981 by James Clark, its initial market was 3D graphics computer workstations, but its products, strategies and market positions developed significantly over time.
Early systems were based on the Geometry Engine that Clark and Marc Hannah had developed at Stanford University, and were derived from Clark's broader background in computer graphics. The Geometry Engine was the first very-large-scale integration (VLSI) implementation of a geometry pipeline, specialized hardware that accelerated the "inner-loop" geometric computations needed to display three-dimensional images. For much of its history, the company focused on 3D imaging and was a major supplier of both hardware and software in this market.
Silicon Graphics reincorporated as a Delaware corporation in January 1990. Through the mid to late-1990s, the rapidly improving performance of commodity Wintel machines began to erode SGI's stronghold in the 3D market. The porting of Maya to other platforms was a major event in this process. SGI made several attempts to address this, including a disastrous move from their existing MIPS platforms to the Intel Itanium, as well as introducing their own Linux-based Intel IA-32 based workstations and servers that failed in the market. In the mid-2000s the company repositioned itself as a supercomputer vendor, a move that also failed.
On April 1, 2009, SGI filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and announced that it would sell substantially all of its assets to Rackable Systems, a deal finalized on May 11, 2009, with Rackable assuming the name Silicon Graphics International. The remains of Silicon Graphics, Inc. became Graphics Properties Holdings, Inc.
^"Business Entity Detail". Business Search database. California Secretary of State. Archived from the original on March 15, 2015. Retrieved December 30, 2013.
SiliconGraphics, Inc. (stylized as SiliconGraphics before 1999, later rebranded SGI, historically known as SiliconGraphics Computer Systems or SGCS)...
SiliconGraphics International Corp. (SGI; formerly Rackable Systems, Inc.) was an American manufacturer of computer hardware and software, including high-performance...
SiliconGraphics Image (SGI) or the RGB file format is the native raster graphics file format for SiliconGraphics workstations. The format was invented...
such as Sun Microsystems, SiliconGraphics, Apollo Computer, DEC, HP, NeXT, and IBM which powered the 3D computer graphics revolution of the late 1990s...
technology hub – now known as Silicon Valley. The field of computer graphics developed with the emergence of computer graphics hardware. Further advances...
1985 at SIGGRAPH '85 in San Francisco. Initial versions ran only on SiliconGraphics computers and the Irix operating system, until late in the 1990s when...
3D graphics transformations. In the mid-1990s, a major use of non-embedded MIPS microprocessors were graphics workstations from SiliconGraphics. MIPS...
and the Sega Saturn. Development began in 1993 in partnership with SiliconGraphics, using the codename Project Reality, then a test model and arcade platform...
manufactured by SiliconGraphics, Inc. (SGI). SGI first announced the system in July 1991. The Indigo is one of the most capable graphics workstations of...
Silicon Studio Corporation is a Japanese computer graphics technology company and HR services provider based in Tokyo. As a technology company, Silicon...
is a low-end multimedia workstation introduced on July 12, 1993 by SiliconGraphics Incorporated (SGI). SGI developed, manufactured, and marketed Indy...
XFS is a high-performance 64-bit journaling file system created by SiliconGraphics, Inc (SGI) in 1993. It was the default file system in SGI's IRIX operating...
(/ˈaɪrɪks/ EYE-ricks) is a discontinued operating system developed by SiliconGraphics (SGI) to run on the company's proprietary MIPS workstations and servers...
product had little market penetration. The SGI Indy, built in 1993 for SiliconGraphics has a history of usage in the development of the Nintendo 64 as well...
typically used to interact with a graphics processing unit (GPU), to achieve hardware-accelerated rendering. SiliconGraphics, Inc. (SGI) began developing...
Diehard2) is a SiliconGraphics (SGI) computer released in 1992. It is the world's first 64-bit workstation. Crimson is a member of SiliconGraphics's SGI IRIS...
1980s, seeing design wins with Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and SiliconGraphics (SGI), among others. By the early 1990s the market was crowded with...
which went bankrupt in 1995. In 1996, Cray Research was acquired by SiliconGraphics (SGI). In 2000, Cray Inc. was formed when Tera Computer Company purchased...
Wall of Entropy, was a hardware random number generator designed by SiliconGraphics that worked by taking pictures of the patterns made by the floating...
real-time 3D video compositing system used in a television broadcast. "SiliconGraphics: showing off". Edge (7): 18–19. April 1994. Retrieved December 14,...
The O2 is an entry-level Unix workstation introduced in 1996 by SiliconGraphics, Inc. (SGI) to replace their earlier Indy series. Like the Indy, the O2...
International, a gambling company SiliconGraphics, Inc., a former manufacturer of high-performance computing products SiliconGraphics International, formerly...
server computers and supercomputers produced by SiliconGraphics (and successor company SiliconGraphics International), based on Intel processors. It succeeded...
product line from SiliconGraphics dedicated to visualization, announced in April 2008. It represents a return of SiliconGraphics to the visualization...
Global Information