Ageia

Ageia, founded in 2002, was a fabless semiconductor company. Ageia later acquired NovodeX, the company who created PhysX – a Physics Processing Unit chip capable of performing game physics calculations much faster than general purpose CPUs; they also licensed out the PhysX SDK (formerly NovodeX SDK), a large physics middleware library for game production.

Ageia Technologies, Inc.
IndustrySemiconductors
FateAcquired by Nvidia Corporation
Founded2002
DefunctFebruary 13, 2008
HeadquartersSanta Clara, California, United States
Key people
Manju Hegde, CEO Curtis Matthew Davis, COO, President, & Co-founder
ProductsPhysics Processing Units
Physics engines
Websitewww.ageia.com

Ageia was noted as being the first company to develop hardware designed to offload calculation of video game physics from the CPU to a separate chip, commercializing it in the form of the Ageia PhysX, a discreet PCIe card. Soon after the Ageia implementation of their PhysX processor, ATI and Nvidia announced their own physics implementations.

On September 1, 2005, AGEIA acquires Meqon, a physics development company based in Sweden. Known for its forward-looking features and multi-platform support, Meqon earned international acclaim in the games world for its physics technology incorporated in 3D Realms’ Duke Nukem Forever and Saber Interactive's TimeShift.[1]

On February 4, 2008, Nvidia announced that it would acquire Ageia.[2] On February 13, 2008, the merger was finalized.[3][4]

The PhysX engine is now known as Nvidia PhysX, and has been adapted to be run on Nvidia's GPUs.[5]

References
  1. AGEIA Acquires Meqon Research AB, MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — September 1, 2005
  2. Smalley, Tim. "Nvidia set to acquire Ageia" bit-tech.net, 4 February 2008. Accessed at http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/02/04/nvidia_set_to_acquire_ageia/1 on 5 February 2008.
  3. NVIDIA completes Acquisition of AGEIA Technologies, NVIDIA, SANTA CLARA, CA — FEBRUARY 13, 2008 (press-release)
  4. Nvidia finalises Ageia deal, details future plans, Tim Smalley, 14th February 2008, bittech
  5. "Overview". PhysX. GeForce. Retrieved 2 April 2013.


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