Founded in 1986, Silicon & Software Systems (S3) is headquartered in Dublin, Ireland with design centers, sales offices and representatives globally is one of Europe's largest semiconductor IP companies.   Calling itself the "Connected Consumer Technology" company, S3 delivers a portfolio of mixed-signal IP and design services for power-efficient single-chip SoCs designed to 90nm and 65nm process technology.

John O'Brien

As S3's CEO, John  O'Brien oversees all strategic and operational aspects of the company, including managing four design centers and six sales offices globally.  Prior to his appointment as CEO in 2001, he was S3's CEO.  O'brien consolidated S3's Europe and US-centric organizations into a unified structure and shifted the company's strategic focus from a pure services business model to an increasing mixed product and services position. O'Brien joined S3 in 1989. Earlier, he held a series of technology and engineering positions at Plessey Semiconductors in the UK.

Other key executives:

Dermot Barry, VP Consumer Silicon
Mike Murray, general manager, Mixed Signal IP
Bob Tain, marketing director, IC business unit
Cathal Byrne, CFO
James O'Riordan, CTO
Philip Brennan, VP Consumer Systems
Jim O'Donoghue, head of embeddedMIND Div.
James Blair, director of operations, Consumer Silicon Services
Paul Kavanagh, general manager, S3 North America
Derek Dwyer, general manager, Consumer Home
John Mulcahy, general manager, Mixed Signal IP
Fiona D'Arcy, head of corporate communications
Johnnie Benner, human resources director

After O'brien took the helm, S3 has been recapitalized with a recent investment of over $18.5 million in funding from ACT Venture Capital and Enterprise Ireland. This funding into the USA and Asia is being used to accelerate S3's technology traction in its target markets and expand S3's business. 

S3's mixed-signal CMOS IP portfolio includes AFEs, ADCs, DACs and associated PLL components, optimized for integration into system ICs targeting consumer, wireless, network and digital broadcast applications. End markets served by existing S3 clients include WLAN, WiMAX, digital broadcast standards (e.g. DVB-T, DVB-S, DVB-C and DVB-H), High-Definition (HD) video applications and power-line communications.

In September 2007 S3 provided a full suite of IC, software and hardware design capabilities to NXP enabling the delivery of their latest STB100 SoC-based platform for consumer Set-Top Box(STB) applications. The Nexperia STB100, designed for the 90nm process, enables STBs to be developed for around USD20 BOM costs and is targeted at single-channel digital STB 'Zapper Boxes' and iDTV systems for free-to-air or pay television.

Earlier, in September 2006, S3 joined forces with Frontier Silicon to develop a reference turnkey solution for multi-standard mobile DTV, enabling handset manufacturers to rapidly deploy "world ready" mobile devices based on both DVB-H and T-DMB standards. This joint initiative will offer customers Frontier Silicon's multi-standard digital baseband processor and RF tuner chips with S3's onHandTV™ mobile DTV client software.

S3 is taping out solutions, integrating IP into single-chip systems, leveraging extensive design experience, and producing more than 35 SoC designs at the 90nm and 65nm process technology nodes.  The company delivers hard IP in GDII format targeted to a specific process which provides better assurance of working silicon on the first pass.

In October 2007, S3 acquired Acacia Semiconductor S.A., a developer of high-performance data converter IP based in Portugal.  With the acquisition of Acacia, S3 adds higher speed, higher resolution and lower power data converters to its extensive IP portfolio

Acacia Semiconductor, a privately-held company, was founded in 2003 as a spin-off from the Microelectronics Signal-Processing group at CRI-UNINOVA, an R&D sub-unit associated with the Faculty of Science and Technology of Lisbon (FCT), in Portugal. The team has developed high performance data converter IP, targeting consumer and communications applications. Bernardo Henriques is the co-founder and CEO of Acacia Semiconductor.  Funding for Acacia came from Portugese investment companies: Change Partners, SQ Capital, and PME Investimentos

S3 has design centers in Ireland (Dublin and Cork), Czech Republic (Prague), and Poland with sales offices and representatives globally.  Currently, the company's USA subsidiary is a sales office but plans to design services in the future.  Most of the marketing effort has been in Europe and North America.  Asia will get more attention in the future. About 90% of the company's staff of 300 employees are slip 50-50 between embedded software development for digital TV and STBs and silicon design-related functions.   The company sees most of its growth coming from mixed-signal silicon IP and design services.  A small part of the company is devoted to consulting.

The company's main competition comes from Portugal's Chipidea which was recently acquired by MIPS Technologies. 

S3 has opened an engineering design center in the heart of Silicon Valley to provide improved local support to its existing client base and additional business development resources to enable further grow in the North American market. 

The design center is located at 560 South Winchester Blvd., San Jose, Calif., Tel:(408-236-7900). The center will be directed by Paul Kavanagh, GM, S3 North America.

For a video perspective on S3's IP business, click here.

Contact:

Silicon & Software Systems Ltd.
Whelan House
South County Business Park
Leopardstown
Dublin 18 IRELAND

Tel: +353 1 2911 000
Fax: +353 1 2911 001
Web: www.s3group.com