Global Silicon Limited
Encyclopedia
Global Silicon Limited is a fabless semiconductor company
founded in 1997 in Cambridge
, United Kingdom
. Global Silicon designed and produced system level semiconductors for the consumer audio market. Global Silicon created a number of new IC
s that were noteworthy for the level of system integration that was achieved. Initial products focussed on solutions for CD players, later expanding to also include MP3
and WMA
compressed formats. Global Silicon's DART IC
was used in the CD/MP3
Boombox
(Philips
AZ3038) and a subsequent IC (Xin) was used in a number of consumer products including the CD/MP3
/WMA
boombox (Packard Bell OP10). Global Silicon created a number of patents to cover the new technology that had been created.
Global Silicon did not achieve commercial success, the investors decided to close the company in 2006 citing lack of sales traction. In 2007, the CTO of Global Silicon purchased the company's intellectual property
(excluding patents), stock and assets including a HK subsidiarity and has been operating the company from Hong Kong
since. Currently Global Silicon is a consulting company.
. Initially the company was called "The Cheap & Cheerful Chip Company Limited". Brennan was joined by engineer Morgan Colmer in 1998. Together Brennan and Colmer developed an FPGA based demonstration for a new CD player IC that integrated the functions of several system ICs into one system-on-a-chip
(SoC
). After successfully raising £2 million pounds (GBP) from investment firm MTI in 1999, the company went on to turn the demonstration system into an ASIC
. The company changed its name to Global Silicon prior to the first round of investment.
In 2005, Global Silicon received further investment of £5.7 million pounds (GBP) from a consortium of investors made up of MTI, Quester and Celtic House. This investment was used to create new IC
s to keep pace with the rapid changes that were occurring in the consumer audio space.
s with varying degrees of success. All of the semiconductor products are now discontinued.
player market and one of the key pieces of technology that was created on the Xin-Core platform, was a complete CD player including servo, data decoder and audio player. Upon this base, the company also created their own hand-crafted implementations of MP3
and WMA
decoders. Additional DSP
effects were created as was a User Interface
(UI) layer that could easily be customised for the majority of consumer audio applications.
Patents created by the company were:
equipment sales falling and being replaced with products such as the iPod
. The company's extensive patent portfolio was sold separately.
(IP), stock and assets of the company including a Hong Kong
subsidiary. All assets and intellectual property were then transferred to the subsidiary company (of the same name) and has operated since as a consulting business in Asia.
Fabless semiconductor company
A fabless semiconductor company specializes in the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing the fabrication or "fab" of the devices to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry...
founded in 1997 in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
, United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Global Silicon designed and produced system level semiconductors for the consumer audio market. Global Silicon created a number of new IC
Ic
IC, ic, or i.c. may stand for:In computing and technology:* .ic.gov, a second-level domain name administered by the US Government for members of the intelligence community* Integrated circuit* Initial condition...
s that were noteworthy for the level of system integration that was achieved. Initial products focussed on solutions for CD players, later expanding to also include MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
and WMA
WMA
WMA may refer to:- Organizations :*Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association, a nonprofit trade association for owners of manufactured home communities in California*Western Marble Arch, a synagogue in central London...
compressed formats. Global Silicon's DART IC
Ic
IC, ic, or i.c. may stand for:In computing and technology:* .ic.gov, a second-level domain name administered by the US Government for members of the intelligence community* Integrated circuit* Initial condition...
was used in the CD/MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
Boombox
Boombox
Boombox is a colloquial expression for a portable cassette or CD player. Other terms known are ghetto blaster, jambox, or radio-cassette. It is a device capable of receiving radio stations and playing recorded music , usually at relatively high volume...
(Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
AZ3038) and a subsequent IC (Xin) was used in a number of consumer products including the CD/MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
/WMA
WMA
WMA may refer to:- Organizations :*Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association, a nonprofit trade association for owners of manufactured home communities in California*Western Marble Arch, a synagogue in central London...
boombox (Packard Bell OP10). Global Silicon created a number of patents to cover the new technology that had been created.
Global Silicon did not achieve commercial success, the investors decided to close the company in 2006 citing lack of sales traction. In 2007, the CTO of Global Silicon purchased the company's intellectual property
Intellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
(excluding patents), stock and assets including a HK subsidiarity and has been operating the company from Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
since. Currently Global Silicon is a consulting company.
Founding and Investment
Global Silicon was founded in Cambridge, UK by engineer Martin BrennanMartin Brennan
Martin Brennan may refer to:*Martin Brennan , Irish medical practitioner and Fianna Fáil politician, TD from 1938–1948*Martin Brennan , computer engineer who worked for Sinclair Research and Atari...
. Initially the company was called "The Cheap & Cheerful Chip Company Limited". Brennan was joined by engineer Morgan Colmer in 1998. Together Brennan and Colmer developed an FPGA based demonstration for a new CD player IC that integrated the functions of several system ICs into one system-on-a-chip
System-on-a-chip
A system on a chip or system on chip is an integrated circuit that integrates all components of a computer or other electronic system into a single chip. It may contain digital, analog, mixed-signal, and often radio-frequency functions—all on a single chip substrate...
(SoC
SOC
SOC or SoC may refer to:Social Networking / Entertainment* Soc.TV, an internet based, social television network* Soldier of ChristBusiness* Sirte Oil Company* South Oil CompanyScience and technology...
). After successfully raising £2 million pounds (GBP) from investment firm MTI in 1999, the company went on to turn the demonstration system into an ASIC
ASIC
ASIC may refer to:* Application-specific integrated circuit, an integrated circuit developed for a particular use, as opposed to a customised general-purpose device.* ASIC programming language, a dialect of BASIC...
. The company changed its name to Global Silicon prior to the first round of investment.
In 2005, Global Silicon received further investment of £5.7 million pounds (GBP) from a consortium of investors made up of MTI, Quester and Celtic House. This investment was used to create new IC
Ic
IC, ic, or i.c. may stand for:In computing and technology:* .ic.gov, a second-level domain name administered by the US Government for members of the intelligence community* Integrated circuit* Initial condition...
s to keep pace with the rapid changes that were occurring in the consumer audio space.
Management
- William Jeffrey served as CEO and Chairman from the initial investment in 1999 until he took a leave of absence in 2006 following being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
- Martin BrennanMartin BrennanMartin Brennan may refer to:*Martin Brennan , Irish medical practitioner and Fianna Fáil politician, TD from 1938–1948*Martin Brennan , computer engineer who worked for Sinclair Research and Atari...
served as Managing Director until he left Global Silicon in 2001 to form a new audio company called 3GA. - Morgan Colmer served as the CTO for the company until 2006 and then participated in the management buy out of company assets and from 2007 has served as the Managing Director.
- David Leith served as the CEO of the company from 2003 until 2004.
- Steve Cliff served as Sales and Marketing Director from 2004 to 2005.
- Andrew Hamer served as Sales and Marketing Director from 2002 to 2003.
- Mr Nick Rich served as CFO from December 2004 to October 2006, then served as Managing Director until December 2006.
Products
Global Silicon produced 6 different ICIc
IC, ic, or i.c. may stand for:In computing and technology:* .ic.gov, a second-level domain name administered by the US Government for members of the intelligence community* Integrated circuit* Initial condition...
s with varying degrees of success. All of the semiconductor products are now discontinued.
| IC Ic IC, ic, or i.c. may stand for:In computing and technology:* .ic.gov, a second-level domain name administered by the US Government for members of the intelligence community* Integrated circuit* Initial condition... name | date of release | number produced | target products | details |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DART | 2003 | <100K | CD/MP3 MP3 MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression... boombox Boombox Boombox is a colloquial expression for a portable cassette or CD player. Other terms known are ghetto blaster, jambox, or radio-cassette. It is a device capable of receiving radio stations and playing recorded music , usually at relatively high volume... |
0.35μm NEC process |
| ARROW | 2003 | <1K | CD/MP3 MP3 MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression... boombox Boombox Boombox is a colloquial expression for a portable cassette or CD player. Other terms known are ghetto blaster, jambox, or radio-cassette. It is a device capable of receiving radio stations and playing recorded music , usually at relatively high volume... |
0.5μm ASM process. Was never brought to productions due to cost issues |
| DART2 | 2004 | <1K | test chip | 0.35μm CSM process. Was created as a test device for the next IC Ic IC, ic, or i.c. may stand for:In computing and technology:* .ic.gov, a second-level domain name administered by the US Government for members of the intelligence community* Integrated circuit* Initial condition... s |
| Xin | 2004 | <1000K | CD/MP3 MP3 MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression... /WMA WMA WMA may refer to:- Organizations :*Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association, a nonprofit trade association for owners of manufactured home communities in California*Western Marble Arch, a synagogue in central London... boombox Boombox Boombox is a colloquial expression for a portable cassette or CD player. Other terms known are ghetto blaster, jambox, or radio-cassette. It is a device capable of receiving radio stations and playing recorded music , usually at relatively high volume... |
0.18μm CSM process |
| Xif | 2005 | <1K | Flash MP3 Player Flash MP3 Player Flash MP3 Player is a web application that allows users to create a music player on their website. It is based on Flash and PHP, but it can be installed without any programming skills. Users are simply required to embed a piece of HTML code into their website and application automatically generates... |
0.18μm CSM process. Not released due to a major bug |
| Xif2 | 2006 | <1K | Flash MP3 Player Flash MP3 Player Flash MP3 Player is a web application that allows users to create a music player on their website. It is based on Flash and PHP, but it can be installed without any programming skills. Users are simply required to embed a piece of HTML code into their website and application automatically generates... |
0.18μm CSM process. Bug fixed version of Xif |
Patents and Technology
Global Silicon's initial products focussed on the Compact DiscCompact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
player market and one of the key pieces of technology that was created on the Xin-Core platform, was a complete CD player including servo, data decoder and audio player. Upon this base, the company also created their own hand-crafted implementations of MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
and WMA
WMA
WMA may refer to:- Organizations :*Western Manufactured Housing Communities Association, a nonprofit trade association for owners of manufactured home communities in California*Western Marble Arch, a synagogue in central London...
decoders. Additional DSP
DSP
- Computing :* Digital signal processing, the study and implementation of signals in digital computing and their processing methods* Digital signal processor, a specialized microprocessor designed specifically for digital signal processing...
effects were created as was a User Interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...
(UI) layer that could easily be customised for the majority of consumer audio applications.
Patents created by the company were:
- Digital audio processing
- Driver circuit for a liquid crystal display
- Radio receiver
- Divisional filing for above relating to novel demodulation technique
- Method for cancelling a beat frequency in a radio receiver
- De-bouncing Circuit
- Replaying digital media
- Sigma-delta modulator
- Random number generator
- Flash memory error correction
- A sigma delta modulator utilizing feedback loop and logic circuit
- A network set-up device
- Radio tuner user interface
Closing the UK Company
In December 2006, the board decided to close the business and a buyer was sought for the IP, stock and assets. The investors cited "investment in Global Silicon was written off following its failure to get significant sales traction despite having a proven product". It is also self-evident that the loss of the company's Chairman, William Jeffrey due to cancer will have factored in the decision process. The timing of the closure was also at a pivotal point in the consumer audio market, with Compact DiscCompact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
equipment sales falling and being replaced with products such as the iPod
IPod
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the touchscreen iPod Touch, the compact iPod Nano, and the ultra-compact iPod Shuffle...
. The company's extensive patent portfolio was sold separately.
Management Buyout
In January 2007, the company CTO, Morgan Colmer, purchased from the administrators the intellectual propertyIntellectual property
Intellectual property is a term referring to a number of distinct types of creations of the mind for which a set of exclusive rights are recognized—and the corresponding fields of law...
(IP), stock and assets of the company including a Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
subsidiary. All assets and intellectual property were then transferred to the subsidiary company (of the same name) and has operated since as a consulting business in Asia.
External links
- Company Web Site
- http://www.daewoo.cl/sta-info/manuals/audio/TP501G.pdfBoomboxBoomboxBoombox is a colloquial expression for a portable cassette or CD player. Other terms known are ghetto blaster, jambox, or radio-cassette. It is a device capable of receiving radio stations and playing recorded music , usually at relatively high volume...
Product Featuring Xin Processor] - Xin processor gets ready for tape-out
- http://www.linkedin.com/directory/companies/consumer-electronics/hong-kong.htmlGlobal Silicon listed as a Hong KongHong KongHong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
based company] - Rega CD Players that are currently available that use the Xin IC inside