CSR plc (formerly Cambridge Silicon Radio) was a
multinational fabless semiconductor company
Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclu ...
headquartered in
Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
, United Kingdom. Its main products were connectivity, audio, imaging and location chips. CSR was listed on the
London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...
and was a constituent of the
FTSE 250 Index
The FTSE 250 Index ( "Footsie") is a capitalisation-weighted index consisting of the 101st to the 350th largest companies listed on the London Stock Exchange. Promotions and demotions to and from the index occur quarterly in March, June, Septem ...
until it was acquired by
Qualcomm
Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, ...
in August 2015. Under Qualcomm's ownership, the company was renamed Qualcomm Technologies International, Ltd.
History
The company was founded in 1998 and split away from
Cambridge Consultants
Cambridge Consultants, part of Capgemini Invent, develops breakthrough products and services, creates and licenses intellectual property, and provides business consultancy in technology-critical issues for clients worldwide. The company has offic ...
as ''Cambridge Silicon Radio'' or CSR in 1999. The founding directors, who were all at Cambridge Consultants at the time were
Phil O'Donovan,
James Collier
James William Collier (September 28, 1872 – September 28, 1933) was a politician from the U.S. state of Mississippi.
Born on the Glenwood Plantation near Vicksburg in 1872, he graduated from the University of Mississippi at Oxford in 1894 ...
and Glenn Collinson.
It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 2004.
In 2005 the company acquired Clarity Technologies, a leading clear voice capture (CVC) business and UbiNetics, a 3G wireless (
WCDMA
The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the In ...
/
UMTS
The Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS) is a third generation mobile cellular system for networks based on the GSM standard. Developed and maintained by the 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project), UMTS is a component of the In ...
/
HSDPA
High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) is an amalgamation of two mobile protocols—High Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) and High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA)—that extends and improves the performance of existing 3G mobile telecommunic ...
) technology company. In 2007, CSR acquired Nordnav, a Swedish-based
GPS software company, and CPS, a Cambridge-based GPS software company producing
Enhanced GPS
EGPS ( EGPS, EGPS, trademarked as eGPS) is a technology designed for mobile phones on GSM and W-CDMA networks, to augment GPS signals to deliver faster location fixes, lower cost implementations and reduced power and processing requirements. It ...
in partnership with Motorola.
In February 2009, CSR announced it was merging with
SiRF
SiRF Technology, Inc. was a pioneer in the commercial use of GPS technology for consumer applications. The company was founded in 1995 and was headquartered in San Jose, California. Notable and founding members included Sanjai Kohli, Dado Banat ...
, the biggest global supplier of GPS chips, in a share deal worth $136 million; in July 2010, CSR announced the acquisition of Belfast-based APT Licensing Ltd. (APT) and its
aptX
aptX (''apt'' stands for ''audio processing technology'') is a family of proprietary audio codec compression algorithms owned by Qualcomm, with a heavy emphasis on wireless audio applications.
History
The original aptX algorithm was developed ...
audio technology and in February 2011, CSR announced it was merging with
Zoran
Zoran ( sr-Cyrl, Зоран) is a common South Slavic name, the masculine form of Zora, which means ''dawn, daybreak''. The name is especially common in Serbia, North Macedonia, Croatia and a little in Slovenia.
Notable people with this given ...
, a video and imaging technology company.
In May 2012, CSR acquired Direct Digital Feedback Amplifier (DDFA) technology, a proprietary, highly scalable digital Class-D audio amplifier technology; in June 2012, CSR announced that it had acquired the MAPX (formerly MAP-X) audio product line from
Trident Microsystems
Trident Microsystems was a fabless semiconductor company that in the 1990s, it became a well-known supplier of integrated circuits (commonly called "chips") for video display controllers used in video cards and on motherboards for desktop PCs ...
, Inc and in July 2012,
Samsung Electronics
Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (, sometimes shortened to SEC and stylized as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean multinational electronics corporation headquartered in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, South Korea. It is the pinnacle of the Samsung chaebol, acc ...
agreed to acquire CSR's mobile phone connectivity (Bluetooth and Wi-Fi) and location (GPS/GNSS) businesses and associated IP for US$310 million (£198 million).
As part of the deal Samsung acquired a stake of 4.9% in CSR.
[
In June 2014, CSR acquired the people and technology of Reciva, a networked audio streaming platform, for US$5 million and in October 2014, the acquisition of CSR by ]Qualcomm
Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, ...
for $2.5 billion was agreed. The transaction was completed in August 2015.
Products
CSR's products included platform solutions for Bluetooth
Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...
, GPS, FM broadcasting
FM broadcasting is a method of radio broadcasting using frequency modulation (FM). Invented in 1933 by American engineer Edwin Armstrong, wide-band FM is used worldwide to provide high fidelity sound over broadcast radio. FM broadcasting is capab ...
, Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio waves ...
, audio, imaging, and ARM processor
ARM (stylised in lowercase as arm, formerly an acronym for Advanced RISC Machines and originally Acorn RISC Machine) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures for computer processors, configured ...
s. After the Zoran merger, CSR also made digital imaging products based on the MIPS architecture
MIPS (Microprocessor without Interlocked Pipelined Stages) is a family of reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architectures (ISA)Price, Charles (September 1995). ''MIPS IV Instruction Set'' (Revision 3.2), MIPS Technologies, ...
.
Offices
CSR had 27 offices in 13 countries:
* Churchill House, Cambridge Business Park, Cambridge, UK
* Trinity House, Cambridge Business Park, Cambridge, UK
* Selwyn House, Cambridge Business Park, Cambridge, UK
* Unit 400, Cambridge Science Park, Cambridge, UK
* Part of St. John's House, St. John's Innovation Park, Cambridge, UK
* Quay West, Manchester
Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...
, England, UK
* Bristol and Bath Science Park
Bristol and Bath Science Park (BBSP) is a science park in Emersons Green, South Gloucestershire, England, north-east of Bristol and north-west of Bath. It cost £300 million to build and is expected to employ about 6,000 when fully developed. The ...
, Bristol, England, UK
* Legacy Building, Catalyst Inc, Belfast
Belfast ( , ; from ga, Béal Feirste , meaning 'mouth of the sand-bank ford') is the capital and largest city of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan on the east coast. It is the 12th-largest city in the United Kingdom ...
, Northern Ireland, UK
* Ingolstadt
Ingolstadt (, Austro-Bavarian: ) is an independent city on the Danube in Upper Bavaria with 139,553 inhabitants (as of June 30, 2022). Around half a million people live in the metropolitan area. Ingolstadt is the second largest city in Upper Ba ...
, Germany
* Freiburg
Freiburg im Breisgau (; abbreviated as Freiburg i. Br. or Freiburg i. B.; Low Alemannic: ''Friburg im Brisgau''), commonly referred to as Freiburg, is an independent city in Baden-Württemberg, Germany. With a population of about 230,000 (as o ...
, Germany
* Haifa
Haifa ( he, חֵיפָה ' ; ar, حَيْفَا ') is the third-largest city in Israel—after Jerusalem and Tel Aviv—with a population of in . The city of Haifa forms part of the Haifa metropolitan area, the third-most populous metropol ...
, Israel
* Auburn Hills, Michigan
Auburn Hills is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 21,412 at the 2010 census. Before incorporating as a city in 1983, the area was part of the now-defunct Pontiac Township. It is home to Oakland Universi ...
, United States
* Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix ( ; nv, Hoozdo; es, Fénix or , yuf-x-wal, Banyà:nyuwá) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of cities and towns in Arizona#List of cities and towns, most populous city of the U.S. state of Arizona, with 1 ...
, United States
* Sunnyvale, California
Sunnyvale () is a city located in the Santa Clara Valley in northwest Santa Clara County in the U.S. state of California.
Sunnyvale lies along the historic El Camino Real and Highway 101 and is bordered by portions of San Jose to the nor ...
, United States
* Santa Ana, California
Santa Ana () is the second most populous city and the county seat of Orange County, California. Located in the Greater Los Angeles region of Southern California, the city's population was 310,227 at the 2020 census, making Santa Ana the 13th-m ...
, United States
* Burlington, Massachusetts
Burlington is a town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. The population was 26,377 at the 2020 census.
History
It is believed that Burlington takes its name from the English town of Bridlington, Yorkshire, but this has never ...
, United States
* Plano, Texas
Plano ( ) is a city in Collin County and Denton County, Texas, United States. It had a population of 285,494 at the 2020 census. It is a principal city of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex.
History
European settlers came to the area near ...
, United States
* Beijing
}
Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...
, China
* Shanghai
Shanghai (; , , Standard Chinese, Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four Direct-administered municipalities of China, direct-administered municipalities of the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the ...
, China
* Shenzhen
Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern provi ...
, China
* Prestige Technology Park II, Bangalore
Bangalore (), officially Bengaluru (), is the capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan population of around , making it the third most populous city and fifth most ...
, India
* Noida
Noida, short for New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, is a planned city located in Gautam Buddha Nagar district of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. Noida is a satellite city of Delhi and is a part of the National Capital Region (NCR) o ...
, India
* Tokyo
Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.46 ...
, Japan
* Seongnam
Seongnam () is the fourth largest city in South Korea's Gyeonggi Province after Suwon and the 10th largest city in the country. Its population is approximately one million. Seongnam is a satellite city of Seoul. It is largely a residential ci ...
, Gyunggi-Do, Korea
* Gumi, Korea
* United Square, Singapore
Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...
* Taipei
Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the ...
, Taiwan
* Zhongli, Taiwan
* Lund
Lund (, , ) is a city in the southern Swedish province of Scania, across the Öresund strait from Copenhagen. The town had 91,940 inhabitants out of a municipal total of 121,510 . It is the seat of Lund Municipality, Scania County. The Öre ...
, Ideon Science Park
Ideon Science Park is a science park in Lund, Sweden that is run and sponsored by Wihlborgs Fastigheter AB, Lund University and Lund Municipality. There about of office and lab space in over ten buildings.
St Ericsson, Sony, Ericsson, Axis Comm ...
, Sweden
References
{{Authority control
Technology companies established in 1998
Semiconductor companies of the United Kingdom
Bluetooth
Fabless semiconductor companies
Companies based in Cambridge
Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange
Qualcomm
1998 establishments in England