3Dlabs is to turn away from workstation-oriented graphics cards and steer itself toward the mobile graphics arena, the company's parent, Creative Technology, said today. The move will be accompanied by the loss of 100 jobs.

Creative warned investors the restructure will cost it $9m. Writing down certain 3Dlabs assets and goodwill will see the company taking a further $25m hit, it said.

3Dlabs was created in April 1994 when DuPont Pixel's management bought out the division, and it became one of the pioneers of PC 3D graphics. Creative bought the company in June 2002.

Since then it has been pursuing embedded 3D graphics applications, including mobile devices. But the mobile graphics space is arguably more crowded than the workstation and PC markets, though being much larger there's more room for a range of players, too. ®