Icera Inc. is a British multinational fabless semiconductor company headquartered in

Bristol Bristol () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, the most populous city in the region. Built around the River Avon, Bristol, River Avon, it is bordered by t ...

, United Kingdom, and a wholly owned subsidiary of Nvidia Corporation. It has developed soft modem chipsets for the mobile devices market, including mobile broadband datacards, USB sticks, and embedded modems for

smartphones A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as mult ...

laptop A laptop computer or notebook computer, also known as a laptop or notebook, is a small, portable personal computer (PC). Laptops typically have a Clamshell design, clamshell form factor (design), form factor with a flat-panel computer scree ...

netbook A netbook is a small-sized laptop computer; they were primarily sold from 2007 until around 2013, designed mostly as a means of accessing the Internet and being significantly less expensive than regular-sized laptops. At their inception in l ...

s, tablets,

e-book An ebook (short for electronic book), also spelled as e-book or eBook, is a book publication made available in electronic form, consisting of text, images, or both, readable on the flat-panel display of computers or other electronic devices. Al ...

s and other mobile broadband devices. Icera has research and development sites in

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

, the United Kingdom and the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and customer engineering and sales offices in China,

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

Korea Korea is a peninsular region in East Asia consisting of the Korean Peninsula, Jeju Island, and smaller islands. Since the end of World War II in 1945, it has been politically Division of Korea, divided at or near the 38th parallel north, 3 ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

, the United States and

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. On 9 May 2011 it was announced that Nvidia Corporation had agreed to acquire Icera for US$367 million in cash from its venture capital owners, which included

Accel Partners Accel, formerly known as Accel Partners, is a global venture capital firm. Accel works with startups in seed, early and growth-stage investments. The company has offices in Palo Alto, California and San Francisco, California, with additional ope ...

, Amadeus Capital Partners, Atlas Venture, Balderton Capital and DFJ Esprit. On 5 May 2015 Nvidia Corporation announced that Icera would wind down its operations.

History

Icera was founded in April 2002 by Stan Boland, Steve Allpress, Simon Knowles and Nigel Toon. The company is staffed by a team employed in custom processor design, wireless algorithm development,

CMOS Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor (CMOS, pronounced "sea-moss ", , ) is a type of MOSFET, metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) semiconductor device fabrication, fabrication process that uses complementary an ...

RF design, customer support and wireless handset platform integration. In January 2003, Icera completed a $10M

Series A A series A is the name typically given to a company's first significant round of venture capital financing. It can be followed by the word round, investment or financing. The name refers to the class of preferred stock sold to investors in exchan ...

round from a major investor. Later in the year, Icera inaugurated two offices in

, United Kingdom and in

. In July 2004, Icera completed another $32.5M Series B funding round and, later that year, licensed TTPCom's 2G/3G protocol stack. In January 2005, the Sophia Antipolis offices in France were opened. In September 2005, Icera's first 90 nm Livanto ICE8020 chips were sampled to Seiko Instruments Inc, for a first product development for Vodafone KK. In March 2006, the company completed its third financing round raising $60M Series C funds. Icera launched its Espresso 200 platform in 2006, and two new offices were opened in

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

, and in Cambridge, United Kingdom. Icera acquired Sirific Wireless in May 2008, adding CMOS RF to its portfolio. In the same month, the company began to ship its 65 nm Livanto ICE8040 baseband chips and the associated Espresso 300 reference design was launched. At the end of that year, the company inaugurated its Chinese office in Shanghai and announced a total of $70M of Series CC financing, including

venture debt Venture debt or venture lending (related: "venture leasing") is a type of debt financing provided to venture-backed companies by specialized banks or non-bank lenders to fund working capital or capital expenses, such as purchasing equipment. Ventu ...

. In June 2009, Icera announced that its platform is supported by Nvidia Tegra-based MIDs. In late June 2009, Option launched a new iCON 505 HSPA USB modem with

TeliaSonera Telia Company AB is a Swedish Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company and mobile network operator present in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. Telia also owns TV4 Media which includes TV4 in S ...

in Sweden, which is powered by the Icera Livanto baseband chipset. In December 2009, Icera announced that its Livanto chipset is powering the Sierra Wireless AirCard USB 305. In April 2010, Icera announced that its Livanto chipset is powering the USB modem from LG Mobile Phones which launched with

AT&T AT&T Inc., an abbreviation for its predecessor's former name, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the w ...

in the United States: the AT&T USBConnect Turbo. In May 2010, it was announced that Icera's Livanto chipset and IceClear interference-aware technology were being used in Vodafone's K3805-Z USB stick, boosting mobile broadband reliability and connection speeds for

Vodafone Vodafone Group Public Limited Company () is a British Multinational company, multinational telecommunications company. Its registered office and global headquarters are in Newbury, Berkshire, England. It predominantly operates Service (economic ...

customers. The Vodafone K3805-Z is the world's first USB modem to incorporate Icera's IceClear interference-aware technology. In May 2010, Icera secured a further $45M in Series DD financing, which will accelerate its growth. To date, Icera has raised $258M in venture investments. In August 2010, Icera announced that it had opened its second customer support center in Xi'an, China. On 9 May 2011 it was announced that Nvidia Corporation had agreed to acquire Icera for $435.7M in cash. On 5 May 2015 Nvidia Corporation announced that Icera would wind down operations.

Products

* Livanto Chipsets Chipsets for

mobile broadband Mobile broadband is the marketing term for Wireless broadband, wireless Internet access via mobile network, mobile (cell) networks. Access to the network can be made through a portable modem, wireless modem, or a Tablet computer, tablet/smartp ...

cellular modem devices. Livanto is the world's first wireless soft modem. * Baseband chips ** ICE8060 (sampling in H2 2010) ** ICE8042 (up to 21 Mbit/s) ** ICE8040 (up to 21 Mbit/s) ** ICE8020 (up to 3.6 Mbit/s) * Radio chips ** ICE9225 (sampling in H2 2010) ** ICE8260 (2G/3G/4G) ** ICE8215 (2G/3G) * Power Management chips ** ICE8145 (BGA or wafer-level CSP package) * Espresso Reference Platforms reference platforms for

data devices and next generation

** Espresso 400 Data Platform (sampling in H2 2010) ** Espresso 302 Data Platform ** Espresso 300 Data Platform ** Espresso 200 Data Platform

References

{{Nvidia Semiconductor companies of the United Kingdom Nvidia Fabless semiconductor companies Electronics companies disestablished in 2015 British subsidiaries of foreign companies