Ageia

Ageia, founded in 2002, was a fabless semiconductor company. In 2004, Ageia 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
Founded2002
DefunctFebruary 13, 2008
FateAcquired by and merged into Nvidia Corporation
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]

History

Ageia Technologies was founded in 2002 by five entrepreneurs and computer technologists, one of whom was Manju Hegde, who became its chairman and CEO. The name AGEIA represents the first letters of the countries from which the founders of the company originated: America, Germany, Egypt, India, America.[6]

The main focus of the company's activities was the development of a PPU (Physics Processing Unit) called Ageia PhysX PPU. The purpose of this chip was to perform game physics calculations in computer games and other interactive software applications. The PhysX PPU has been announced as a revolutionary chip that will bring high-quality real-time mass-scale physics simulations to the gaming and software industry everywhere. It was stated that the chip will make a revolution similar to the advent of graphics accelerators mounted on discrete graphics cards.[6][7]

In May 2003, Ageia received $9.5 million in funding.[7]

In 2004, Ageia makes its major acquisition. It buys the Swiss company NovodeX AG along with its eponymous physics engine NovodeX Physics. According to Hedge, Ageia chose the NovodeX engine because at the time it was the most reliable, multi-platform, multi-threaded, high-performance real-time physics engine on the market. Employees of NovodeX AG joined Ageia, and the NovodeX engine version 2.3 became the basis for Ageia's own engine, Ageia PhysX. Initially, the engine had an old name – NovodeX, but over time it was replaced by a new one, Ageia PhysX. The main innovation added to the resulting engine was support for hardware acceleration on the PhysX PPU. Thus, with this purchase, Ageia received the second necessary component – a software physics engine that supports a physical processor.[7][8][9]

At the start of 2005, Ageia had over $38 million in cash flow and $30 million in reserves. The main investors were Apex Venture Partners, BA Venture Partners, HIG Ventures, Granite Global Ventures, CID Equity Partners and VentureTech.[7]

On March 8, 2005, at the Game Developers Conference 2005, Ageia officially announced its intention to bring its own physical processor, the Ageia PhysX PPU, to the market.[10]

On September 1, 2005, Ageia acquired the Swedish company Meqon Research AB, which created its own Meqon physics engine. Meqon was integrated into the Ageia PhysX engine, and Meqon Research AB employees were integrated into the Ageia development team. For licensees who purchased Meqon prior to purchase, Ageia continued to support.[11][12] The official press release regarding the purchase of the company and the engine mentioned two games that were in development at the time of the purchase and for which a Meqon license had been acquired: Duke Nukem Forever and TimeShift.[13] However, in August 2007, shortly before the release of TimeShift (October and November 2007), it became known that she was not using Meqon, but Havok 4.5.[14]

On May 9, 2006, the first deliveries of Ageia PhysX PPU to retail trade began.[15]

In November 2007, the press reported that AMD was considering buying Ageia. The reason for these assumptions was an interview given to the British information resource Custom PC by AMD's head of developer relations, Richard Huddy. In this interview, Huddy revealed that AMD executives are discussing buying Ageia from time to time. Huddy cited the price that Ageia might demand as the main obstacle to such a purchase. Given the purchase of Havok, the developer of the engine of the same name, by Intel in the summer of 2007 for $100 million, Ageia, looking at this precedent, may demand a similar amount, which AMD cannot pay. However, Huddy said that he is confident that NVIDIA, AMD's main competitor in the GPU market, is very serious about buying Ageia.[16]

On February 4, 2008, NVIDIA announced its desire to acquire Ageia.[17]

On February 13, 2008, the acquisition was completed, Ageia merged into NVIDIA and ceased to exist as a separate company. The PhysX physics engine from that point on became known as NVIDIA PhysX.[18]

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.
  6. "Ageia". 2005-11-24. Archived from the original on 24 November 2005. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
  7. "AGEIA Technologies Interview - Xbox". 2011-09-21. Archived from the original on 21 September 2011. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
  8. "Matthias Müller". matthias-research.github.io. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
  9. "PhysXInfo.com - PhysX SDK FAQ". 2011-01-02. Archived from the original on 2 January 2011. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
  10. Roper, Chris (2005-03-08). "GDC 2005: PhysX Hardware Physics Accelerator Unveiled". IGN. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
  11. "Gamasutra - Ageia Acquires Meqon Research". 2005-11-19. Archived from the original on 19 November 2005. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
  12. "AGEIA Acquires Meqon Research AB - Xbox". 2005-12-08. Archived from the original on 8 December 2005. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
  13. "Ageia". 2006-02-08. Archived from the original on 8 February 2006. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
  14. "HEXUS.gaming - Headline :: TimeShift sports Havok 4.5 physics : Page - 1/1". 2007-08-26. Archived from the original on 26 August 2007. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
  15. Wilson, Derek. "Exclusive: ASUS Debuts AGEIA PhysX Hardware". www.anandtech.com. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
  16. "AMD tosses around the idea of acquiring Ageia". Engadget. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
  17. "Nvidia set to acquire Ageia | bit-tech.net". bit-tech.net. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
  18. "NVIDIA Completes Acquisition of AGEIA Technologies: Financial News - Yahoo! Finance". 2008-04-17. Archived from the original on 17 April 2008. Retrieved 2022-01-31.
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