The Digital Display Working Group (DDWG), the industry body formed to devise a standard for digital LCD panel monitors, today unveiled its first reference board, based on 3D specialist S3's Savage 4 Pro chipset and its Digital Video Interface (DVI) 1.0 spec. S3's participation in the DDWG was sponsored by Intel, so it's no surprise that it will be Chipzilla that first demonstrates the board at a conference next week. S3 is, of course, Intel's favourite 3D graphics company, and has been since it cunningly bought a series of processor patents Chipzilla had been after for some time. The patents covered Exponential Technologies' ill-fated attempt to marry mainframe processor and desktop processor design and fab technologies to create PowerPC-compatible chips way faster then anything available from Motorola or IBM -- or Intel, for that matter -- at the time. "The DVI 1.0 standard will enable flat panel displays to become as common on the desktop as they are in the notebook space today," said S3's CTO, Andy Wolfe. "We look forward to quickly transferring this technology to our customers to give them a time-to-market advantage with flat panel displays for the desktop." The commercial benefits for the once ailing, now recovering S3 are clear, and it's a testament to the leverage it has with Chipzilla thanks to those handy Exponential patents. Other graphics chipset vendors, including ATI, nVidia and 3dfx, are also adding digital connectors to their cards, but attaching itself to what's clearly going to become the standard is a real boost for S3. ®