computing industry. Tesla is a new family of GPU computing products that delivers processing capabilities for high-performance computing applications. The Tesla family consists of the C870 GPU computing processor, the D870 Deskside Supercomputer and the S870 1U Computing Server.



In fiscal year 2008, we completed our acquisition of Mental Images, an industry leader in photorealistic rendering technology. Mental Images’ Mental Ray product is considered by many to be the most pervasive ray tracing renderer in the industry.  Mental Images visualization technology is embedded in most major digital content creation, or DCC, and computer aided design, or CAD, applications, and its rendering technology is deployed by major manufacturers and film studios. We believe that this strategic combination will enable the development of tools and technologies that will advance the state of visualization, will be optimized for next generation computing architectures, and will create new product categories for both hardware and software.



MCP Business

 

    In fiscal year 2008, we announced a new technology named Hybrid SLI.  We named it hybrid because this technology combines a powerful as well as an energy-efficient engine, and of Scalable Link Interface, or SLI, because it is our multi-GPU technology.  The technology is application aware so, depending on the processing demands of each application running on the host PC, the discrete GPU may be completely shut-down in order to save power.



During fiscal year 2008, our NVIDIA nForce products held the leadership position for the AMD segment, as reported in the 2007 Fourth Quarter PC Processor and Chipsets Report from Mercury Research.



During the third quarter of fiscal year 2008, we shipped our first single-chip motherboard GPUs, or mGPUs, for Intel-processor-based desktop PCs.  The GeForce 7000 mGPU family delivers the performance of an entry-level discrete GPU when compared against traditional integrated graphics solutions.



During the first quarter of fiscal year 2008, we shipped the GeForce 7050 mGPU, which targets the lower cost categories of the market.



During the first quarter of fiscal year 2008, we extended the reach of SLI technology into the performance category with the launch of our NVIDIA nForce 650i SLI, 680i LT SLI and 680i Ultra MCP products for Intel.



Consumer Products Business



During the first quarter of fiscal year 2008, we unveiled our first applications processor – the GoForce 6100.  The GoForce 6100 is designed for next generation PMPs, and multimedia smart phones. We began to ship the GoForce 6100 during the second quarter of fiscal year 2008.

 

    Subsequent to fiscal year 2008, in February 2008, we launched the NVIDIA APX 2500.  The APX 2500 is a computer-on-a-chip designed to meet the growing multimedia demands of today's mobile phone user.  The APX 2500 is the culmination of several hundred man years of research and development.  We believe that the mobile application processor is an area where we can add a significant amount of value and we also believe it represents a revenue growth opportunity.

Gross Margin Improvement

 

We continued to focus on