Even though we more or less KNEW this was coming, it is sad to see the official end of an era over at VIA.  According to this Digitimes report, the chipset division, responsible for such masterpieces as the KT266A and KT133A, is being bundled in with the CPU division.

VIA Technologies merged its PC chipset division under that of CPUs in the fourth quarter of last year. Going forward the division will mainly focus on supporting the company’s own-brand CPU platforms and will slowly phase out of the third-party chipset market, according a Chinese-language Apply Daily report citing sources at the company.

The company will still provide support from AMD platforms while continuing the support older Intel products that are not impacted by patent issues, the paper noted.

Due to client demand, the company has not completely given up on negotiating with Intel for a patent contract, however, even if the company does receive a license, the current competitiveness in the chipset market means that the company would be unlikely to see a great benefit to its performance. As a result the company is searching for other profitable markets, particularly in the CPU, communications and multimedia sectors, added the paper.