CEO interview: S3 Semi ready for custom opportunity
October 12, 2017 // By Peter Clarke, eeNews Analog
John O'Brien, CEO of S3 Group Ltd. (Dublin, Ireland) has been making steady progress in shifting his company's business model from one of service to one that is a mix of products and services and that is particularly true in the semiconductor business division.
The creation of the S3 Semiconductors division with a focus on a design-to-delivery custom chip service for industrial applications (see S3 adds custom chip business model) is the latest step in a progress that could eventually see S3 Semi operating as a fabless chip company – albeit with a twist – O'Brien told eeNews Europe in an interview. Indeed, O'Brien has called S3 Semiconductors "a new breed of semiconductor company."
Of course, IP licensing is a form a product business model and it is currently about 30 percent of the semiconductor business, mainly with engagements with semiconductor companies, O'Brien said. The division retains the ability to create and license semiconductor IP but O'Brien said that he is expecting that by the end of 2018 there will be no more purely design service engagements for S3 Semi. The rest of the semiconductor business is moving toward customer-specific ASIC design with the potential to provide some drivers, firmware and software as necessary.
S3 Group Ltd. (Dublin, Ireland) has been an engineer-rich, design-service and IP generating company since its formation as Silicon & Software Systems Ltd. in 1986. The company, still privately held, has received investment of more than $18.5 million in funding from ACT Venture Capital and Enterprise Ireland. S3 received a €10 million (about $12 million) investment in 2005.
With the passage of time the company settled into three specific areas of expertise. In software there was connected health and digital television and on the hardware side mixed-signal and RF circuit design. The digital television business was sold to consulting group Accenture for an undisclosed amount of money in 2015, which does raise the question: is S3 Semiconductor now being groomed for sale?
E-mail This Article | Printer-Friendly Page |
|
Related News
- CEO Interview: Charlie Janac of Arteris -- "Pick a Viable Path, Don't Give Up"
- CEO interview: MIPS' Sameer Wasson on a RISC-V reboot
- CEO Interview: Intrinsic ID's Pim Tuyls on Embedded Security
- CEO interview: Alphawave IP's Pialis on chiplets and custom silicon
- CEO interview: Minima's Tuomas Hollman on why static timing sign-off is over
Breaking News
- Omni Design Technologies Joins Intel Foundry Accelerator IP Alliance
- Efabless Announces the Release of the OpenLane 2 Development Platform, Transforming Custom Silicon Design Flows
- TSMC Reports First Quarter EPS of NT$8.70
- Brisbane Silicon publishes DPTx 1.4 IP Core
- GUC provides 3DIC ASIC total service package to AI/HPC/Networking customers
Most Popular
- U.S. Subsidy for TSMC Has AI Chips, Tech Leadership in Sight
- Cadence Unveils Palladium Z3 and Protium X3 Systems to Usher in a New Era of Accelerated Verification, Software Development and Digital Twins
- Zhuhai Chuangfeixin: OTP IP Based on 90nm CMOS Image Sensor Process Technology Successfully Mass Production
- Silvaco Announces Expanded Partnership with Micron Technology
- OPENEDGES Unveils ENLIGHT Pro: A High-Performance NPU IP Quadrupling its Previous Generation's Performance