Centaur Technology

Centaur Technologies Inc. was founded in April 1995 by Glenn Henry, Terry Parks, Darius Gaskins, and Al Sato. The funding was provided by Integrated Device Technology, Inc (IDT). The business goal was to develop compatible x86 processors that were less expensive than Intel processors and consumed less power. There were two main elements of the plan: While funded by IDT, three different Centaur designs were shipped under the marketing name of WinChip. In September 1999, Centaur was purchased from IDT by VIA Technologies, a Taiwanese company. Since then, five designs have shipped with the marketing name of VIA C3, as well as a number of designs for the VIA C7 processor and its latest 64-bit CPU, the VIA Nano. The VIA Nano design has been further refined and improved in chips produced by Zhaoxin (a VIA joint venture company).