Philips spins off programmable IP startup

April 25, 2007 – Royal Philips Electronics has floated Silicon Hive BV from its fold to focus on programmable processor IP cores. A $10 million seed investment from Philips and VC firms New Venture Partners and TVM Capital will be used to scale commercial operations and support new product development, the companies said.

Silicon Hive was formed in 2003 to commercialize Philips Research’s technology in programmable solutions for consumer and mobile devices. Its portfolio includes tuned processor cores for communications and media processing applications, as well as a hardware and software design flow. The goal is to help companies make fully programmable SoCs for mobile phones and TV, mobile WiMax terminals, consumer printers, and high definition video signal processing.

“Our silicon-proven cores are now starting to penetrate tier one semiconductor companies supplying major mobile phone and consumer electronics companies,” said Atul Sinha, CEO of Silicon Hive BV, in a statement.

The spinoff represents Philips’ second spinout from its Technology Incubator, following the January launch of Polymer Vision Ltd., targeting the rollable display market.

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