Intel Corp. on Friday said it plans to acquire Havok, the company that is primarily known for its physics engines used across a variety of applications. The move, according to the world’s largest maker of chips, will help the company to develop “visual computing and graphics” products. The takeover will not affect ongoing projects of Havok, such as physics engine for graphics processing units (GPUs).
“Havok is a proven leader in physics technology for gaming and digital content, and will become a key element of Intel’s visual computing and graphics efforts. Havok will operate its business as usual, which will allow them to continue developing products that are offered across all platforms in the industry,” said Renee J. James, vice president and general manager of Intel's Software and Solutions Group.
Havok’s modular suite of software development tools is used by game and digital animation creators to build realistic video games for all types of hardware and digitally animated movies. The company’s combination of technology and dedication to customers has led to its technology being used in more than 150 of the world's best-known game titles, including BioShock, Stranglehold, Halo 2, Half Life 2, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Crackdown, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, MotorStorm and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. In addition, Havok products have been used to create special effects in movies such as Poseidon, The Matrix, Troy, Kingdom of Heaven and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
The acquisition of Havok is expected to allow Intel Corp. to ensure that Havok’s software physics engines are tailored for the company’s hardware, including multi-core central processing units, high-performance Larrabee processors as well as rumoured graphics processing units. The software company itself is likely to get additional funding from Intel, which will allow it to offer even more complex products.
Havok will be a wholly owned Intel subsidiary and continue to operate as an independent business working with its customers in developing digital media content. Havok was founded in 1998 in Dublin, Ireland, and has offices in San Francisco, San Antonio, Stockholm, Calcutta, Munich and Tokyo.
Terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
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Discussion started: 09/15/07 07:11:17 AM
Latest comment: 10/19/07 07:10:01 AM
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1.
Now I like Intel, but I hope this move forces more Ageia support.
I also hope Intel integrates a PPU into their future CPUs. I mean, integrating a GFX card into a CPU as in Fusion is nice, but a PPU would be more useful.
Also, why on Earth does Intel think it's integrated Pentium graphics processor is any good? Unless they make offboard gfx processors, or give Intelgrated graphics its own 512MB of GDDR3 RAM, I don't think it would make much of a difference.
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Posted by: nuff
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Date: 09/15/07 07:11:17 AM]
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Only one words comes to mind .. bizarre. Unless Intel in planning to cripple future versions on non-Intel hardware (which would be suicide, given that just as good alternatives exist), this just doesn't make sense. Neither side can offer the other side anything of value. Intel buying Ageia - that would make sense. But Havoc? Bizarre.
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Posted by: Cynic
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Date: 09/15/07 11:57:24 AM]
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they must be planning to put in havoc's API into a hardware version and pop those cores into their 80 core tera project....
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Posted by: dudde
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Date: 09/16/07 04:22:05 AM]
+ expand thread (1 answer)
- collapse thread
Aye! Their 80 core processor would be suitable for vector processing. It's useless for general purpose computing.
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Posted by: OhNo
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Date: 10/19/07 07:10:01 AM]
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