ARK Logic

Advanced Rendering Kernels was a graphics chipset manufacturer during the early-to-mid 1990s DOS era. Founded in 1993 and headquartered in Santa Clara, CA., they brifely produced some of the fastest graphics accelerators for the VESA Local Bus and early PCI buses.

They are probably most famous for their ARK1000PV and ARK2000PV chips which were released in October 1994.

The independent company was shortlived, selling 51% of its stock to Integrated Circuit Systems (ICS) in April 1995 with an agreement for the rest following 18 months later. Once completed, the ARK portion of ICS was moved to San Jose, CA. ICS had been producing RAMDACs and clock generators for graphics card manufacturers, but were looking to get more of a foothold in the multimedia market. They said at the time, "The rationale for the acquisition is to merge the audio and mixed-signal RAMDAC and video clock generator technologies of the company with the state-of-the-art graphics controller technology of ARK to create a one-stop shopping source of graphics, video, and audio devices for the PC multimedia industry." (two years earlier they had purchased a majority stock of Turtle Beach Corp., so this move meant ICS were well-positioned in both audio and graphics markets). ICS are also well-known for their WaveFront wavetable synthesizer chip.

The Quadro64 series of 2D accelerator chips arrived in early 1999, based on the ARK2000MI+.

By late 1996 ICS were steeped in several million dollars of debt, and were looking to sell their majority ownership. This took place in July 1997 when holding company Vision 2000 Ventures bought 80% of the company. Under the ICS brand name, the company sold Turtle Beach shortly after to focus more on the graphics accelerator market.

The ARK Logic brand continued to produce 3D graphics accelerators in 1998 and 1999, though these were considered out of date by the time they hit the market.

ARK Logic chipsets (in chronological order):

PCI / VESA Local Bus	AGP
ARK1000VL (1995) ARK1000PV (1995) ARK2000PV (1995) ARK2000MT (1996) ARK2000MI (1996) ARK2000MI+ (1997) Quadro64 (1999) Quadro64 LC (1999) Quadro64 TV (1999) Quadro64 ED (1999) Quadro64/3D (1999) ARK8100 Tiger 3D (1998) ARK8800 Cougar 3D (1999)	ARK8100 Tiger 3D (1998) ARK8800 Cougar 3D (1999)