NVIDIA and TSMC today celebrated the shipment of the one-billionth GeForce graphics processor designed by NVIDIA and manufactured by TSMC.

The partners achieved the one-billionth processor milestone in less than 12 years.

"Since inventing the GPU more than a decade ago, NVIDIA has driven innovation in these processors at a rate virtually unmatched in the technology industry," said Jen-Hsun Huang, president and chief executive officer, NVIDIA. "With our close partnership with TSMC, the complexity of these devices has increased more than 1000 times, enabling enormous progress in computers ranging from handhelds and PCs to workstations and data centers."

"NVIDIA's achievement is a prime example of how close collaboration between foundry and fabless companies can benefit the consumer electronics market, the semiconductor market segment, and both companies' shareholders. NVIDIA has been a model of vision and innovation, and we highly value the long-term relationship between NVIDIA and TSMC," said Dr. Morris Chang, TSMC Chairman and CEO.