Qualcomm Atheros, a subsidiary of Qualcomm, has quietly acquired Bigfoot Networks, a designer of network controllers tailored for video games. As a result of the acquisition, Qualcomm Atheros will be able to deliver improved user experience compared to wired and wireless network controllers by other developers.

“Bigfoot Networks' team and technology were acquired in August, 2011 by Qualcomm Atheros, a wholly owned subsidiary of Qualcomm, to deliver value-added intelligent networking solutions dedicated to enhancing the end user networking experience,” Bigfoot Networks has announced quietly on its web-site.

Neither Qualcomm Atheros nor Bigfoot itself have revealed official reasons of the transaction. Generally, it is believed that Qualcomm Atheros will be able to use technologies developed by Bigfoot for its own products and will be able to boost its portfolio of patents.

Bigfoot’s Killer network processing units (NPUs) detects game traffic as it is generated and prioritizes it over all other network traffic. As a result, gamers get minimum possible ping and lowest possible response time. In addition, the Killer NPUs sported a number of other interesting capabilities Naturally, the technology can be re-tweaked to prioritize different types of packets, e.g., better VoIP connection or improved access to certain types of data within datacenters.

Among other things, technologies developed by Bigfoot may be used for cloud datacenters. In particular, companies providing cloud-based video games streaming services, such as Gaikai or OnLive, may be interested in network controllers that can prioritize data traffic.

Tags: Qualcomm, Qualcomm Atheros, Killer, Bigfoot Networks