Jen-Hsun Huang, the chief executive of graphics chip maker Nvidia Corp., saw the value of his compensation package fall by more than half in 2008, according to an Associated Press analysis of figures released in a filing Wednesday.

Huang, who co-founded the Santa Clara, Calif. company in 1993, received a package worth $3.7 million, down from $7.6 million the year before. Huang voluntarily cut his base pay to $1 effective Oct. 1, 2008. That left his overall salary for the year at $401,272, down 31 percent from the year before. He drew no bonus. By comparison, he received a cash bonus of $150,000 and performance-related payments of roughly $2.3 million in 2007.

The bulk of Huang's pay came in stock options worth about $3.3 million. But $2.2 million worth of those were granted in March of 2008, when Nvidia's stock traded at $17.66. Shares closed Wednesday at $11.41, meaning the options are of little value.

Like most chip makers, Nvidia had a difficult 2008, with consumers buying fewer electronics. The company fell to a loss of $30 million from a profit of $797.6 million a year earlier, and saw its revenue drop to $3.42 billion from $4.1 billion.

The Associated Press formula is designed to isolate the value the company's board placed on the executive's total compensation package during the last fiscal year. It includes salary, bonus, performance-related bonuses, perks, above-market returns on deferred compensation and the estimated value of stock options and awards granted during the year.

The calculations don't include changes in the present value of pension benefits, and they sometimes differ from the totals companies list in the summary compensation table of proxy statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which reflect the size of the accounting charge taken for the executive's compensation in the previous fiscal year.