Aureal Semiconductor

Aureal Semiconductor
Type	Corporation
Founded	1995
Headquarters	Fremont, California
Key people	Kenneth 'Kip' Kokinakis, President and CEO
Industry	Audio Technologies
Website	http://www.aureal.com (closed down)

Aureal Semiconductor was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-late 1990s for their PC sound card technologies including A3D and the Vortex line of audio ASICs. The Company was the reincarnation of the then bankrupt Media Vision Technology, developer and manufacturer of multimedia peripherals such as the Pro Audio Spectrum 16.

History

On March 5th, 1998[1], Creative Labs sued Aureal for patent infringement. Aureal countersued for patent infringement and tortious business practices. 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. On September 21st, 2000, Creative acquired Aureal's assets from its bankruptcy trustee for US$ 32 million. The purchase included patents, trademarks and other property, as well as a release to Creative from any infringement by Creative of Aureal's intellectual property including A3D. The purchase effectively eliminating Creative's only competition in the gaming audio market and released any requirement that Creative pay past or future royalties or damages for products which incorporated Aureal's technology.

Technologies and products

• Aureal's technology was advertised as originally under development by NASA. The original NASA program was to create accurate 3D sound with only a set of headphones. This was to try to cut costs, as speakers were more expensive during this time. Aureal took some of the technology and re-branded it as A3D. This was similar to Creative's EAX.
• Contrary to OEM companies (such as Creative which builds brands and sells their own devices), Aureal was a fabless semiconductor company.
• This changed with the last product - the Aureal SuperQuad. However, to not anger the middlemen, Aureal did no marketing of its self-branded product.
• On the software side, A3D was supported by 3DMark along with many other software titles of the late 1990s.

See also

• Media Vision (computer audio)
• A3D
• Creative Labs

References

• Aureal And Creative Engage In Legal Skirmish (1998-03-05). Retrieved on 1999-08-29. (through Internet Archive)

External links

• 3D Audio Revolution - A legacy web site featuring news about Aureal and its A3D technology.
• Aureal vs Creative - Timeline of Aureal and Creative's legal battle and its purchase by Creative.
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