Symwave

Symwave, Inc. operated as a fabless semiconductor company specializing in high-performance analog and mixed-signal connectivity solutions for consumer, mobile, and PC markets. The company was founded in 2001 by a group of engineers and executives from Conexant Systems Inc., itself a spinoff from Rockwell International. Initially, Symwave focused on designing chips for FireWire, a technology for high-speed data transfer primarily used with devices like camcorders.

A significant pivot occurred in 2008 when Yossi Cohen, a former executive from Broadcom, joined as President and CEO. Cohen refocused the company's strategy, ceasing investment in the waning FireWire market to concentrate on the emerging SuperSpeed USB 3.0 standard. This strategic shift proved critical. The company developed a suite of USB 3.0 compliant products, including physical layer (PHY) cores and integrated circuits, that offered data transfer speeds up to 10 times faster than the preceding USB 2.0. A key benefit of their technology was its extremely low power consumption and high electrical performance, along with backward compatibility with USB 2.0 devices.

The business model was centered on designing and selling these semiconductor solutions to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Symwave provided not just the silicon but also a complete development environment, including software and reference designs, to support its clients. This approach secured major customers in the external storage market, including Western Digital, Seagate, LaCie, and Hitachi Global Storage Technologies. By late 2010, the company was shipping over a million units per month and captured an estimated 80% of the market for USB 3.0 chips used in devices connecting to PCs.

The company's success and strategic importance in the USB 3.0 transition attracted investors. Symwave raised a total of $32.4M in funding from backers including Icon Ventures and Kodiak Venture Partners. Standard Microsystems Corp. (SMSC) became a key strategic partner, initially investing $5.2 million in 2009 and providing an additional $3.1 million in bridge financing. This relationship culminated in SMSC acquiring Symwave on November 12, 2010, to integrate its best-in-class USB 3.0 expertise as the technology was poised for mass deployment.

Keywords: Symwave, analog semiconductor, mixed-signal IC, USB 3.0, SuperSpeed USB, storage controller, fabless semiconductor, data transfer, connectivity solutions, physical layer PHY, Conexant, Yossi Cohen, Standard Microsystems, SMSC acquisition, external storage, Western Digital, Seagate, low-power IC, semiconductor design, data connectivity