Thanks to Future Horizons for this one, the ten biggest chipless semiconductor companies. Collectively their revenues just topped $1 billion last year.
ARM
Rambus
MIPS
Synopsys
MOSAID Technologies
Imagination Technologies
Virage Logic
Silicon Image
Ceva (ParthusCeva)
ARC
An intriguing list this. The first company on the list accounted for around half the revenues of the sector (£300 million = nearly $500 million), and made money. The second enjoyed turnover of one quarter of this amount, but lost money. That means the remaining eight collectively are tiny - not sure how many managed to make money. Why is it that no one other than ARM has really managed to make the IP business model work?
Good point Peter. I think it's because the market for IP is usually chip companies, IC margins have been squeezed for a decade, and IP companies don't have much fire-power when it comes to negotiating price and terms - unless their IP is uniquely strategic, like ARM's, i.e. you need it for compatiblity with wireless applications processing.
Well, we (www.asics.ws) didn't make the list I guess, BUT we made a profit ! Sometimes it pays to be "small" and efficient. Business is blooming, profits are higher than ever before.
Well done, Rudolf Usselman, I agree size isn't everything and profits are the most important thing. You had me going for a moment thinking that a company in Western Samoa has a thriving business supplying and integrating IP Cores for ASICs and SOC. But I assume 'ws' in your case stands for 'world services' and you have registered in Western Samoa to get the suffix. That's neat.
David - I hadn't thought of it like that but I think you're spot on in your analysis. I speak as a disappointed ARC shareholder. ARM was very clever in the way that it managed its licencees at the early stages.
Well thanks Peter. As I understand it, Nokia, wanting above all to stop Wintel getting into the mobile Internet, looked for a processor architecture which was being sold on a different business model to the proprietary in-house processors of the chip companies, and alighted upon ARM. Nokia then, so I understand, told its main chip-set supplier TI that they wanted to use ARM cores for the apps processors in mobile phones. So TI took an ARM licence (ARM's second licensee after Plessey) and then anyone wanting to be compatible in handsets had to have an ARM licence as well. Once that had happened, ARM was on a roll. ARC never had that iniital boost. But the trouble with ARC, to my mind, was that the original ARC management quickly got supplanted by less than insightful marketing people who ransacked it.
Hi David, this is an excellent top ten list. I can see how the chipless companies have faired well given the move in technology trends. There is a still a lot of opportunity for these companies to expand the applications of their technology, I can imagine so many vertical markets that could use it. You can cross-post this to our site http://www.toptentopten.com/ and link back to your site. We are trying to create a directory for top ten lists where people can find your site. The coolest feature is you can let other people vote on the rankings of your list.
Thank you Vince, that's most kind of you. Will do.