Aureal Semiconductor Inc. was an American

electronics Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other Electric charge, electrically charged particles. It is a subfield ...

manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-late 1990s for their PC

sound card A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs. The term ''sound card'' is also applied to external audio ...

technologies including A3D and the

Vortex In fluid dynamics, a vortex (: vortices or vortexes) is a region in a fluid in which the flow revolves around an axis line, which may be straight or curved. Vortices form in stirred fluids, and may be observed in smoke rings, whirlpools in th ...

(a line of audio

ASIC An application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC ) is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficien ...

s.) The company was the reincarnation of the, at the time, bankrupt

Media Vision Media Vision Technology, Inc., was an American electronics manufacturer of primarily computer sound cards and CD-ROM kits, operating from 1990 to approximately 1995 in Fremont, California. Media Vision was widely known for its Pro AudioSpectrum ...

Technology, who developed and manufactured multimedia peripherals such as the Pro Audio Spectrum 16.

History

In May 1996, Aureal Semiconductor was founded from what previously was Media Vision Technologies Inc. after being involved in a financial scandal that led to then-CEO Paul Jain stepping down. Media Vision incurred approximately $104 million of aggregate losses in 1995 before the company was renamed. Aureal sustained further losses of $17 million in 1996 and $18 million in 1997. After having acquired Crystal River Engineering in May 1996, Aureal worked with them to develop and market the A3D audio technology. The technology was incorporated into video games,

surround sound Surround sound is a technique for enriching the fidelity and depth of sound reproduction by using multiple audio channels from speakers that surround the listener ( surround channels). Its first application was in movie theaters. Prior to ...

systems and sound cards. On March 5, 1998

Creative Labs Creative Technology Ltd., or Creative Labs Pte Ltd., is a Singaporean multinational electronics company mainly dealing with audio technologies and products such as speakers, headphones, sound cards and other digital media. Founded by Sim Wong ...

sued Aureal for

patent infringement A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

. Aureal countersued because they believed Creative was guilty of patent infringement. After numerous lawsuits Aureal won a favorable ruling in December 1999, which vindicated Aureal from these patent infringement claims, but the legal costs were too high and Aureal filed for

bankruptcy Bankruptcy is a legal process through which people or other entities who cannot repay debts to creditors may seek relief from some or all of their debts. In most jurisdictions, bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the deb ...

. On September 21, 2000, Creative acquired Aureal's assets from its

bankruptcy trustee A trustee in bankruptcy is an entity, often an individual, in charge of administering a bankruptcy estate. Canada In Canada, a licensed insolvency trustee (LIT) is an individual or a corporation licensed by the official superintendent to hold ...

for US$32 million through the

bankruptcy court United States bankruptcy courts are courts created under Article I of the United States Constitution. The current system of bankruptcy courts was created by the United States Congress in 1978, effective April 1, 1984. United States bankruptcy ...

, with the specific provision that Creative Labs would be released from all claims of past infringement by Creative Labs upon Aureal's A3D technology. The purchase included patents, trademarks, other property, as well as a release to Creative from any infringement by Creative of Aureal's intellectual property including A3D. The purchase effectively eliminated Creative's only competition in the gaming audio market, and with it any requirements for Creative to pay past or future royalties as well as damages for products which incorporated Aureal's technology.

Technologies and products

Contrary to OEM companies (such as Creative which builds, brands and sells their own devices), Aureal was a

fabless Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclu ...

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. Its conductivity can be modified by adding impurities (" doping") to its crystal structure. When two regions with different doping level ...

company. This changed with their final product: the Aureal SuperQuad. However, to not anger the middlemen, Aureal did no marketing of its self-branded product.

Vortex

The Vortex audio accelerator

chipset In a computer system, a chipset is a set of electronic components on one or more integrated circuits that manages the data flow between the processor, memory and peripherals. The chipset is usually found on the motherboard of computers. Chips ...

line from Aureal Semiconductor was designed to improve performance of their then-popular A3D audio technology. The first member of the line, the Vortex AU8820, was announced on July 14, 1997, and was used in by a number of sound card manufacturers, like Turtle Beach and

TerraTec TerraTec Electronic GmbH is a German manufacturer of sound cards, computer speakers, webcams, computer mice, video grabbers and TV tuner cards. TerraTec is mainly known for its sound cards, and is the largest German producer of them. The comp ...

. After Aureal's release of A3D 2.0, the Vortex AU8830 (known as the Vortex 2) was announced on August 6, 1998. The Vortex 2 chipset won numerous industry awards, and was used among other places in the

Diamond Diamond is a Allotropes of carbon, solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Diamond is tasteless, odourless, strong, brittle solid, colourless in pure form, a poor conductor of e ...

Monster Sound MX300, which achieved near-cult status with audiophiles and gamers for the high quality of its positional audio. Near the end of Aureal's existence, they released a Vortex Advantage budget sound card aimed at systems integrators, which ran on the Vortex AU8810 chipset. Towards the end of 1999, the SQ3500 was announced, which ran on the Vortex AU8830 chipset, with the main addition being a new "Turbo DSP" daughter-board module. All Vortex soundcards are still functional with latest

Windows 2000 Windows 2000 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft, targeting the server and business markets. It is the direct successor to Windows NT 4.0, and was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RT ...

Windows XP Windows XP is a major release of Microsoft's Windows NT operating system. It was released to manufacturing on August 24, 2001, and later to retail on October 25, 2001. It is a direct successor to Windows 2000 for high-end and business users a ...

drivers in

Windows Vista Windows Vista is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was the direct successor to Windows XP, released five years earlier, which was then the longest time span between successive releases of Microsoft W ...

and

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

(32 bit editions only). While Windows XP will recognize and work with the 8830 Vortex 2 chipset, there is an official Final Beta (v5.12.2568.0) available for download from a variety of sites which can be found via most internet

search engine A search engine is a software system that provides hyperlinks to web pages, and other relevant information on World Wide Web, the Web in response to a user's web query, query. The user enters a query in a web browser or a mobile app, and the sea ...

s. There is also a modified version of the XP driver that can provide basic audio functionality for the Windows Vista operating system and may also function with Windows 7

beta release The software release life cycle is the process of developing, testing, and distributing a software product (e.g., an operating system). It typically consists of several stages, such as pre-alpha, alpha, beta, and release candidate, before the fi ...

A3D

A3D (Aureal 3-Dimensional) is the technology used by Aureal Semiconductor in their Vortex line of PC sound chips to deliver three-dimensional sound through headphones, two or even four speakers. The technology used

head-related transfer function A head-related transfer function (HRTF) is a response that characterizes how an ear receives a sound from a point in space. As sound strikes the listener, the size and shape of the head, ears, ear canal, density of the head, size and shape of n ...

s (HRTF), which the human ear interprets as spatial cues indicating the location of a particular sound source. Many modern sound cards and

PC game A personal computer game, or abbreviated PC game, also known as a computer game, is a video game played on a personal computer (PC). The term ''PC game'' has been popularly used since the 1990s referring specifically to games on "Wintel" (Micr ...

s incorporated A3D via license from Aureal. Due to Aureal's acquisition (see below) the A3D technology is now part of the

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

. The technology was originally developed by Crystal River Engineering for

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

's Virtual Environment Workstation Project (VIEW). Crystal River later commercialized the technology with a series of products including the Convolvotron and the Acoustetron. Aureal acquired Crystal River in May 1996 and rebranded the technology A3D. A3D differs from various forms of discrete positional audio in that it only requires two speakers, while surround sound typically requires more than four. The particular advantage of A3D is for dynamic or interactive environments such as simulations, games, video conference, and remote learning. A3D is not as effective for static productions such as movies which typically employ surround sound. A3D uses a subset of the actual in-game 3D world data to accurately model the location of both direct (A3Dspace) and reflected (A3Dverb) sound streams (A3D 2.0 can perform up to 60 first-order reflections). EAX 1.0, the competing technology at the time promoted by Creative Labs, simulated the environment with an adjustable reverb—it didn't calculate any actual reflections off the 3D surfaces. A3D was supported by

3DMark 3DMark is a computer benchmarking tool created and developed by UL (formerly Futuremark), to determine the performance of a computer's 3D graphic rendering and CPU workload processing capabilities. Running 3DMark produces a 3DMark score, with ...

along with many other software titles of the late 1990s, including ''

Half-Life Half-life is a mathematical and scientific description of exponential or gradual decay. Half-life, half life or halflife may also refer to: Film * Half-Life (film), ''Half-Life'' (film), a 2008 independent film by Jennifer Phang * ''Half Life: ...

'', ''

Unreal Unreal may refer to: Books and TV * ''Unreal'' (short story collection), a 1985 book of short stories by Paul Jennings * ''Unreal'' (TV series), a 2015 television drama series on Lifetime Computing and games * ''Unreal'' (video game series), ...

'', ''

Quake II ''Quake II'' is a 1997 first-person shooter, first-person shooter game developed by id Software and published by Activision. It is the second installment of the Quake (series), ''Quake'' series, following ''Quake (video game), Quake''. Develope ...

'', '' Soldier of Fortune'', '' Jedi Knight'', ''

SiN In religious context, sin is a transgression against divine law or a law of the deities. Each culture has its own interpretation of what it means to commit a sin. While sins are generally considered actions, any thought, word, or act considered ...

'', ''

Quake III Arena ''Quake III Arena'' is a 1999 first-person shooter game developed by id Software. The third installment of the ''Quake'' series, ''Arena'' differs from previous games by excluding a story-based single-player mode and focusing primarily on mult ...

'' (up to version 1.25), ''

Unreal Tournament ''Unreal Tournament'' is a 1999 first-person shooter game developed by Epic Games and Digital Extremes. The second installment in the '' Unreal'' series, it was first published by GT Interactive in 1999 for Windows, and later released on the P ...

'' and '' Star Trek: Voyager – Elite Force''. Following Aureal Semiconductor's acquisition by Creative, support for the

API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...

was discontinued.

References

External links

*
"Power struggle forced Aureal walkout"
- ExtremeTech interview with Kenneth 'Kip' Kokinakis (President, CEO)

* {{Cite web, title=Crystal River spinoff from NASA, url=http://technology.arc.nasa.gov/success/successfiles/3DAudioSysConvolvotron_1992.pdf, url-status=dead, archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060928214009/http://technology.arc.nasa.gov/success/successfiles/3DAudioSysConvolvotron_1992.pdf, archive-date=September 28, 2006, access-date=October 22, 2021, website=

- A legacy web site featuring news about Aureal and its A3D technology.

- An old website with information, drivers, news etc about A3D. Audio equipment manufacturers of the United States Sound cards American companies established in 1995 American companies disestablished in 2000 Defunct computer companies based in California Defunct computer companies of the United States Defunct computer hardware companies Technology companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Companies based in Fremont, California Computer companies established in 1995 Computer companies disestablished in 2000 Electronics companies established in 1995 Electronics companies disestablished in 2000 Defunct manufacturing companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area Creative Technology acquisitions

History

Technologies and products

Vortex

A3D

See also

References

External links