Sigma Designs

Last updated
Sigma Designs, Inc.
Company type Public
Nasdaq: SIGM
Industry Semiconductor
Founded1982;42 years ago (1982)
DefunctApril 18, 2018 (2018-04-18)
Fateliquidated
Headquarters Fremont, California United States
Products System-on-a-chip
Website sigmadesigns.com

Sigma Designs, Inc., was an American public corporation that designed and built high-performance system-on-a-chip semiconductor technologies for Internet-based set-top boxes, DVD players/recorders, high-definition televisions, media processors, digital media adapters, portable media players and home connectivity products. In addition to platform processing and home network hardware, Sigma Designs also offered engineering support services and customized integrated circuit development.

Contents

The company developed products for the following connected media platforms: IPTV (video over IP) set-top boxes, TV media players (such as Blu-ray), HDTVs, multimedia players, digital media adapters, portable media players, and home networking products, such as HomePlug AV, HomePNA and G.hn. Sigma Designs owns the intellectual property and was one of two chip makers for the Z-Wave home control technology. [1] Sigma had alliances with other technology companies, including Microsoft, [2] and their products are found in stand-alone full HD multimedia players. [3] [4]

History

Sigma Designs was founded in 1982 and is based in Fremont, California, with locations in Canada, Denmark, France, Israel, Japan, Netherlands and Singapore. In September 2002, Sigma Designs and Thirdspace, the broadband TV enablement company, announced that they were combining technologies to improve the quality of streaming video solutions over broadband Internet Protocol (IP) networks. [5]

Sigma Designs began making boards for computers, such as the ReelMagic MPEG decoder. [6] Its products were used in many of the first Blu-ray players since 2005. [7] Sigma media processors also have more than ten-year history in the IPTV market.

In late 2007 Sigma Designs released the first 1080p capable media player chipset, the SMP863x. It spawned a series of stand-alone media players from early 2008 onwards. [3] [4]

Sigma Designs' products were sold worldwide through a direct sales force and distributors. Sigma's Common Stock, publicly traded since 1986, was listed on the NASDAQ National Market under the symbol SIGM.

On December 7, 2017, Silicon Labs announced a definitive agreement to acquire Sigma for approximately $282m. [8] On January 23, 2018, Sigma announced it was unable to meet certain closing conditions, and instead it planned to sell its Z-Wave business to Silicon Labs for $240m, and liquidate the company. [9] The sale of the Z-Wave business to Silicon Labs was completed on April 18, 2018. [10]

Acquisitions

On February 8, 2008, Sigma Designs completed its acquisition of Canadian manufacturer Gennum's VXP image processing business. [11] This technology was used in video projectors. In January 2011, Sigma announced it was adding the VXP technology to its SMP8910 system-on-a-chip. [12]

On December 18, 2008, Sigma Designs announced the acquisition of California-based Zensys, a company that provides the wireless mesh networking technology Z-Wave. [13]

On October 14, 2009, Sigma purchased Israeli home-networking chip maker CopperGate for $160 million in cash and stock. [14] CopperGate technologies included HomePNA and HomePlug AV networking technologies. Sigma has since updated HomePlug AV to include ClearPath, an award-winning technology which significantly increases throughput. [15]

On March 21, 2012, Sigma announced that it has signed an asset purchase agreement to serve as the "stalking horse bidder" to acquire certain assets of Trident Microsystems, Inc.’s Digital Television (DTV) Business, which includes certain products, licensed intellectual property, software and leased facilities, for $21 million in cash plus assumption of specified liabilities. [16]

Product divisions

Sigma Designs provides system-on-a-chip (SoC) products to deliver entertainment and control to consumers:

Media and video processing

On July 9, 2010, Sigma Designs announced its media processors were used by French company, Free Inc., to deliver the first 3D broadcasts of the World Cup, as well as Europe’s first ongoing 3D content. [17]

Sigma Designs offers media and video processing technology, with the SMP8910 and SMP8670 processors, introduced at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show. [18] The 2011 technology offered VXP video processing to clean up artifacts and picture quality on High Definition and 3D content. Although the 8910 chipset was announced at CES (January) 2011, no implementations of this chipset seemed imminent until September 2012. In September 2012, Syabas demonstrated their new Popcorn Hour A-400 media player using the 8911 non-macromedia version of the 8910 chipset at IFA 2012 and Cedia 2012. It is expected to start shipping November 2012. [19] [20]

Home AV Networking

Sigma Designs' AV Network products include:

In June 2011, Sigma announced an “Ultra-Thin Set-Top Box” reference platform named Skini that provides over-the-top content along with over-the-air and cable functionality. [25] [26]

Home control

Sigma Designs develops and markets the Z-Wave protocol for home control. Z-Wave is a wireless radio frequency communications technology designed for control and status reading applications in residential and light commercial environments. Z-Wave has an alliance and more than 1,500 [27] interoperable products in a certification program. On May 23, 2011, Sigma announced Japanese manufacturer Mitsumi as a licensed second source for Z-Wave technology. [1] The company secured Verizon as a partner, with the telecom giant expected to roll out home control and security services through Z-Wave in the fall of 2011. [28]

Xvid controversy

In July 2002, Sigma Designs released an MPEG-4 video codec called the REALmagic MPEG-4 Video Codec. Before long, people testing this new codec found that it contained considerable portions of Xvid code. Sigma Designs was contacted and confirmed that a programmer had based REALmagic on Xvid, but assured that all GPL code would be replaced to avoid copyright infringement. When Sigma Designs released the supposedly rewritten REALmagic codec, the Xvid developers immediately disassembled it and concluded that it still contained Xvid code, only rearranged in an attempt to disguise its presence. The Xvid developers decided to stop work and go public to force Sigma Designs to respect the terms of the GPL. After articles were published in Slashdot [29] and The Inquirer, [30] in August 2002 Sigma Designs agreed to publish their source code. [31]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">AMD</span> American multinational semiconductor company

Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and fabless semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that designs, develops and sells computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets.

The HomePNA Alliance is an incorporated non-profit industry association of companies that develops and standardizes technology for home networking over the existing coaxial cables and telephone wiring within homes, so new wires do not need to be installed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ATI Technologies</span> Canadian technology corporation

ATI Technologies Inc., commonly called ATI, was a Canadian semiconductor technology corporation based in Markham, Ontario, that specialized in the development of graphics processing units and chipsets. Founded in 1985, the company listed publicly in 1993 and was acquired by AMD in 2006. As a major fabrication-less or fabless semiconductor company, ATI conducted research and development in-house and outsourced the manufacturing and assembly of its products. With the decline and eventual bankruptcy of 3dfx in 2000, ATI and its chief rival Nvidia emerged as the two dominant players in the graphics processors industry, eventually forcing other manufacturers into niche roles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xvid</span> Video codec library

Xvid is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 video coding standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile (ASP). It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi masking, trellis quantization, and H.263, MPEG and custom quantization matrices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">VIA Technologies</span> Taiwanese Chipsets manufacturer

VIA Technologies, Inc. is a Taiwanese manufacturer of integrated circuits, mainly motherboard chipsets, CPUs, and memory. It was the world's largest independent manufacturer of motherboard chipsets. As a fabless semiconductor company, VIA conducts research and development of its chipsets in-house, then subcontracts the actual (silicon) manufacturing to third-party merchant foundries such as TSMC.

AC'97 is an audio codec standard developed by Intel Architecture Labs and various codec manufacturers in 1997. The standard was used in motherboards, modems, and sound cards.

HomePlug is the family name for various power line communications specifications under the HomePlug designation, each with unique capabilities and compatibility with other HomePlug specifications.

Cirrus Logic Inc. is an American fabless semiconductor supplier that specializes in analog, mixed-signal, and audio DSP integrated circuits (ICs). Since 1998, the company's headquarters have been in Austin, Texas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Realtek</span> Semiconductor company

Realtek Semiconductor Corp. is a fabless semiconductor company situated in the Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan. Realtek was founded in October 1987 and subsequently listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1998. Realtek has manufactured and sold a variety of microchips globally. Its product lines broadly fall into three categories: communications network ICs, computer peripheral ICs, and multimedia ICs. As of 2019, Realtek employs 5,000 people, of whom 78% work in research and development.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Z-Wave</span> Wireless standard for intelligent building networks

Z-Wave is a wireless communications protocol used primarily for residential and commercial building automation. It is a mesh network using low-energy radio waves to communicate from device to device, allowing for wireless control of smart home devices, such as smart lights, security systems, thermostats, sensors, smart door locks, and garage door openers. The Z-Wave brand and technology are owned by Silicon Labs. Over 300 companies involved in this technology are gathered within the Z-Wave Alliance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SigmaTel</span> 1993–2008 American system-on-a-chip company

SigmaTel, Inc., was an American system-on-a-chip (SoC), electronics and software company headquartered in Austin, Texas, that designed AV media player/recorder SoCs, reference circuit boards, SoC software development kits built around a custom cooperative kernel and all SoC device drivers including USB mass storage and AV decoder DSP, media player/recorder apps, and controller chips for multifunction peripherals. SigmaTel became Austin's largest IPO as of 2003 when it became publicly traded on NASDAQ. The company was driven by a talented mix of electrical and computer engineers plus other professionals with semiconductor industry experience in Silicon Hills, the number two IC design region in the United States, after Silicon Valley.

Qualcomm Atheros is a developer of semiconductor chips for network communications, particularly wireless chipsets. The company was founded under the name T-Span Systems in 1998 by experts in signal processing and VLSI design from Stanford University, the University of California, Berkeley, and private industry. The company was renamed Atheros Communications in 2000 and it completed an initial public offering in February 2004, trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol ATHR.

In electronics engineering, video processing is a particular case of signal processing, in particular image processing, which often employs video filters and where the input and output signals are video files or video streams. Video processing techniques are used in television sets, VCRs, DVDs, video codecs, video players, video scalers and other devices. For example—commonly only design and video processing is different in TV sets of different manufactures.

The following is a list of H.264/MPEG-4 AVC products and implementations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MediaTek</span> Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company

MediaTek Inc. is a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company that designs and manufactures a range of semiconductor products, providing chips for wireless communications, high-definition television, handheld mobile devices like smartphones and tablet computers, navigation systems, consumer multimedia products and digital subscriber line services as well as optical disc drives.

Gigabit Home Networking (G.hn) is a specification for wired home networking that supports speeds up to 2 Gbit/s and operates over four types of legacy wires: telephone wiring, coaxial cables, power lines and plastic optical fiber. Some benefits of a multi-wire standard are lower equipment development costs and lower deployment costs for service providers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Silicon Labs</span> Global technology company

Silicon Laboratories, Inc., commonly referred to as Silicon Labs, is a fabless global technology company that designs and manufactures semiconductors, other silicon devices and software, which it sells to electronics design engineers and manufacturers in Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure worldwide.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CineAsset</span>

CineAsset was a complete mastering software suite by Doremi Labs that could create and playback encrypted and unencrypted DCI compliant packages from virtually any source. CineAsset included a separate "Editor" application for generating Digital Cinema Packages (DCPs). CineAsset Pro added the ability to generate encrypted DCPs and Key Delivery Messages (KDMs) for any encrypted content in the database. It has since been discontinued, along with CineAsset Player.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">HiSilicon</span> Chinese fabless semiconductor manufacturing company, fully owned by Huawei

HiSilicon is a Chinese fabless semiconductor company based in Shenzhen, Guangdong province and wholly owned by Huawei. HiSilicon purchases licenses for CPU designs from ARM Holdings, including the ARM Cortex-A9 MPCore, ARM Cortex-M3, ARM Cortex-A7 MPCore, ARM Cortex-A15 MPCore, ARM Cortex-A53, ARM Cortex-A57 and also for their Mali graphics cores. HiSilicon has also purchased licenses from Vivante Corporation for their GC4000 graphics core.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CinePlayer</span>

CinePlayer is a software based media player used to review Digital Cinema Packages (DCP) without the need for a digital cinema server by Doremi Labs. CinePlayer can play back any DCP, not just those created by Doremi Mastering products. In addition to playing DCPs, CinePlayer can also playback JPEG2000 image sequences and many popular multimedia file types.

References

  1. 1 2 "Sigma Designs Licenses Mitsumi as Second Source for Z-Wave Technology". News release. Marketwire. May 23, 2011. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  2. Antone Gonsalves (April 15, 2008). "Microsoft, Sigma Designs Collaborate On Set-Top Box Technology". InformationWeek. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  3. 1 2 "PopBox to be the First Consumer HD Player with Stereo 3D Support". 3D Vision Blog. May 28, 2010. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
  4. 1 2 "Media Player Chipsets". website. iboum.com: Future Entertainment Technology. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
  5. "Sigma Designs and Thirdspace Combine Technologies".
  6. "Tired of tiny video? Try Reel Magic" . Retrieved 28 November 2012.
  7. "Sigma Designs is collaborating with Pioneer on Blu-Ray". Akihabara News. December 13, 2005. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  8. "Silicon Labs Announces Definitive Agreement to Acquire Sigma Designs, Inc". Silicon Labs MediaRoom. Retrieved 2018-03-27.
  9. "Sigma Designs, Inc. Announces Plan to Sell its Z-Wave Business for $240 Million | Sigma Designs". Sigma Designs. Retrieved 2018-03-27.
  10. "Silicon Labs Completes Acquisition of Sigma Designs' Z-Wave Business". Silicon Labs. Retrieved 2018-04-23.
  11. Darren Murph (February 14, 2008). "Sigma Designs acquires Gennum's VXP image processing business". Engadget. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  12. "Sigma Designs Takes SMP8910 Media Processor to CES 2011". Connected Home World. January 4, 2011. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  13. David Ehrlich (December 18, 2008). "Sigma Designs Buying Smart Network Chipmaker Zensys". GigaOm. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  14. Dean Takahashi (October 14, 2009). "Sigma Designs buys home-networking chip maker CopperGate for $160M". VentureBeat. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  15. "Sigma Designs HomePlug AV With ClearPath Wins TV Innovation Award". News release. December 14, 2010. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  16. "Sigma Designs Signs Agreement to Purchase Trident's Digital Television Business". News release. March 21, 2012. Retrieved March 21, 2012.
  17. "Sigma Designs Delivers the World Cup in 3D". News release. July 9, 2010. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  18. Richard Lawler (January 4, 2011). "Sigma finally brings 'professional grade' VXP video scaling to consumer boxes". Engadget. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  19. S, Ganesh T. (September 5, 2012). "Syabas Launches Popcorn Hour A-400". www.anandtech.com. Anandtech.
  20. "You searched for syabas". Missing Remote.
  21. Michael Weissman (September 17, 2010). "ClearPath Technology From Sigma Designs Takes HomePlug AV To New Levels of Performance". Video from Fiber to the Home Conference. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  22. "Sigma Designs Ships 20 Million HomePNA Chipsets". news release. November 30, 2010. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
  23. "Sigma Designs Unveils Industry's First G.hn Chipset" (PDF). News release. Sigma Designs. October 25, 2010. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  24. "Sigma Designs Unveils Industry's First G.hn Chipset". News release. October 25, 2010. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  25. Jon Healey (June 20, 2011). "The Skini on set-top boxes". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  26. Ganesh T S (June 20, 2011). "Sigma Designs Skini Platform: Home Convergence using Hybrid STBs". AnandTech. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  27. "Sigma Designs Releases Z-Wave Interoperability Layer Into the Public Domain".
  28. Katie Fehrenbacher (January 10, 2011). "Z-Wave Makes Headway in Home Energy, via Verizon". GigaOm. Retrieved August 1, 2011.
  29. Slashdot | Sigma Designs Accused of Copyright Infringement
  30. XVID asks Sigma to stop copyright breach – The INQUIRER
  31. SIGMA MAKES SOURCE CODE AVAILABLE FOR ITS MPEG-4 VIDEO CODEC archived (PDF)