Nvidia Corporation 2012 Annual Review, Notice of Annual Meeting, Proxy Statement and Form 10-K from Super Phones to Super Cars
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NVIDIA CORPORATION 2012 ANNUAL REVIEW, NOTICE OF ANNUAL MEETING, PROXY STATEMENT AND FORM 10-K FROM SUPER PHONES TO SUPER CARS NVIDIA awakened the world to computer graphics when it invented the GPU in 1999. From its roots in visual computing, the company expanded into parallel computing and mobile computing. Today, its processors power a broad range of products from super phones to supercomputers to super cars. NVIDIA’s mobile processors are used in phones, tablets and auto infotainment systems. PC gamers rely on GPUs to enjoy spectacularly immersive worlds. Professionals use them to create visual effects in movies and design everything from golf clubs to jumbo jets. And researchers utilize GPUs to advance the frontiers of science with high-performance computers. Founded in 1993, NVIDIA has 7,300 employees and more than 4,500 patents granted or pending. To learn more about NVIDIA, go to www.nvidia.com DEAR FELLOW STAKEHOLDERS, This year, NVIDIA made important advances in our growth markets and delivered strong financial results. Revenue excluding chipsets, which we are exiting, Rather than booting up PCs, we now turn to our always- grew 33 percent. Growth was largely driven by discrete on, always-connected digital companions. With hundreds GPUs—including GeForce for gamers and consumers, of thousands of applications just a touch away, these Quadro for designers and Tesla for scientists and devices are more powerful than ever. engineers. Even amid the mobile computing revolution, the PC will PC users continue to value GPUs. More than half of all remain the most productive and powerful computer. It consumers and nearly all designers buy PCs with GPUs, will continue to be especially important for designers who reflecting the importance of graphics and our ability to create new worlds, engineers who design new products continue providing amazing visual experiences. and gamers who crave more amazing experiences. Tegra, our mobile processor, recorded revenue growth OUR STRATEGY of more than 400 percent to $360 million. Our effort to NVIDIA is dedicated to advancing visual computing, a engage the fast-growing mobile industry is paying off. growing field in which we have great expertise and passion. We are one of the very few companies from the PC Our 4,500 patents granted or pending include inventions industry to have made the leap to the mobile industry. vital to modern computing, such as the GPU and program- mable shading, as well as those that will shape the future And we announced and shipped Tegra 3, the industry’s of computing, such as CUDA and parallel processing. most advanced mobile processor, which has been adopted by top-tier phone and PC companies around Our GPUs give PCs the power to make visual applications the world. silky smooth. We expect growth as more PCs are used for gaming, design and creating content. The year wasn’t without challenges and disappointments. We also extend the GPU into new growth opportunities, Disk drive shortages, caused by severe floods in Thailand, such as data centers that power cloud computing and slowed the PC market. Demand in Europe was soft. And the mobile processors for smartphones and tablets. first generation of Android tablets showed disappointing results, due to their high cost and limited applications. This year, we made great progress executing our strategy. Despite the challenging environment, revenue rose 13 TEGRA LIFTS OFF percent to $4.0 billion. Gross margin increased to 51.4 Tegra grew strongly and has an exciting future. We have percent, up 11.6 percentage points. Diluted earnings per evolved from being a new entrant in a crowded field to one share more than doubled to $0.94. of the top partners for makers of smartphones and tablets. A SHIFTING LANDSCAPE Tegra is setting the bar for the industry. With Tegra 2, we The computing world is experiencing its biggest transfor- were the first to ship dual-core mobile processors. With mation in decades. The PC’s position at its center is being Tegra 3, we were the first to ship quad-core processors, replaced by the mobile device, helped by more energy- complete with a “4-PLUS-1” hybrid architecture that efficient processors, wireless connectivity and data delivers exceptional processing power as well as great centers that have turned shrink-wrapped applications battery life. We also invented new technologies like PRISM, into web services delivered from the cloud. a power-saving backlight technology and DirectTouch, enabling faster touch processing. NVIDIA CORPORATION 2012 ANNUAL REVIEW 1 Acer, ASUS, HTC, Fujitsu, LG and ZTE have already We have just begun rolling out a new line of GeForce announced Tegra 3 super phones or tablets. Many GPUs based on our revolutionary Kepler architecture, more are in development. which brings unprecedented capabilities and a giant leap in energy efficiency. Initial reaction is fantastic. Reviews We expanded in the mobile market in June with the are glowing and gamers lined up all around the world for $352 million cash acquisition of Icera, a U.K.-based them, with the first shipments selling out in an hour. modem company with a highly sophisticated processor that enables software-defined radios. With Icera, we are REVOLUTIONIZING WORKSTATIONS now one of a very few companies that offer leading-edge Quadro helps designers realize their imagination and mobile processor, modem and system software. The bring it quickly to market. ZTE Mimosa, introduced at the recent Mobile World Congress tradeshow, is only the first phone to bring This year, we introduced Maximus, putting a Tesla together our Tegra and Icera technologies. supercomputing GPU inside a workstation, resulting in a desk-side computer so powerful that it simulates the Cars, the ultimate mobile computer, are also an exciting physics of a design while it is being created. growth opportunity for Tegra. Already, Tegra drives the infotainment systems for Audi and Lamborghini. Soon, it Designers and engineers can now simultaneously do will be in systems from BMW, Tesla Motors and Rolls graphics-intensive and compute-intensive work on the Royce. The car of the future will provide the comfort of a same machine. What once required racks of servers and home theater and robotics technology to make driving hours of waiting can now be done on a desktop, in real safer. NVIDIA will play a key role in its development. time, greatly improving time to market. GEFORCE: ESSENTIAL GEAR OF GAMERS We joined forces with HP to introduce the world’s first The PC gaming market is thriving. Modern Warfare 3 all-in-one workstation, the Quadro-based HP Z1. The Z1 recorded over $1 billion in sales in just 16 days, one day features a 27-inch display that snaps open, like the hood faster than the blockbuster film Avatar. Battlefield 3 flew off of a car, so users can easily swap out parts and make the shelves and set new standards for realism and game- upgrades; no tools required. This is an entirely new play. In China, gamers keep 160,000+ icafes humming. category of professional workstation that we believe will tap market segments, particularly in the creative The purpose of GeForce is to amaze and delight gamers. professions, where space is at a premium and users are We don’t stop at building the most advanced GPUs. We unwilling to compromise performance. develop sophisticated graphics algorithms and software. We invent technologies that simulate physics, water, TO EXASCALE AND BEYOND smoke, light and shadows to make games more realistic. Of the world’s Top500 supercomputers, 35 are now We collaborate deeply with developers so that their games powered by NVIDIA GPUs—triple last year’s number. take full advantage of our GPUs. We invent 3D glasses that work perfectly with high-resolution computers, creating Supercomputers enable researchers to efficiently explore a more immersive experience. All of these innovations the most complex challenges in quantum chemistry, make possible the most amazing game experience. climate research, alternative energy and other critical We are to gamers what Nike is to athletes. scientific areas. Tesla GPUs gained strong momentum in high performance computing this past year, as the Our dedication to their experience resulted in NVIDIA promise of exascale computing—about 1,000X faster than taking 64 percent of the desktop discrete market in the today’s supercomputers—took hold. fourth quarter. Tesla GPUs power three of the world’s top five super- computers. The National Center for Supercomputing Applications chose Tesla for its Blue Waters project, NVIDIA CORPORATION 2 2012 ANNUAL REVIEW which will deploy a supercomputer capable of sustained And in response to Japan’s devastating earthquake and performance of 1 petaflops. Oak Ridge National Labora- tsunami, we organized Operation Kizuna, which is the tories selected Tesla as it set out to develop “Titan,” the Japanese word for love and friendship. We donated world’s fastest supercomputer. $2.75 million, most of which was put toward helping small family businesses get back on their feet. Software developers from a broad range of industries see the benefits of Tesla. The number of Tesla-accelerated We gave back more this year than in any other. Our applications has grown to more than 80 from a handful culture of giving is one of my greatest sources of pride. two years ago, including those for molecular dynamics, computational chemistry and physics, seismic processing THE YEAR AHEAD and equity risk analysis. At the core of our strategy is creating amazing experiences by innovating in visual computing and advancing the GPU. Simulation has become the modern laboratory for a growing number of industries. High performance Already, the GPU is central to the computing experience computing already consumes more than 2 million for gamers and designers, and how we enjoy the rich computing nodes a year.