Actions Semiconductor Co. Ltd. () is a Chinese
fabless
Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing their fabrication (or ''fab'') to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry. These foundries are typically, but not exclus ...
semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical resistivity and conductivity, electrical conductivity value falling between that of a electrical conductor, conductor, such as copper, and an insulator (electricity), insulator, such as glas ...
company founded in 2000 and headquartered in
Zhuhai
Zhuhai (, ; Yale: ''Jyūhói''), also known as Chuhai is a prefecture-level city located on the west bank of Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern Guangdong province, People's Republic of China, on the southeastern edge of Pearl ...
,
Guangdong
Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...
province. The company has about 600 employees and designs
SoCs
SOCS (suppressor of cytokine signaling proteins) refers to a family of genes involved in inhibiting the JAK-STAT signaling pathway.
Genes
* CISH
* SOCS1
* SOCS2
* SOCS3
* SOCS4
* SOCS5
* SOCS6
* SOCS7
Suppressor of cytokine signaling 7 is a pro ...
for
tablets,
digital audio players
Digital usually refers to something using discrete digits, often binary digits.
Technology and computing Hardware
*Digital electronics, electronic circuits which operate using digital signals
**Digital camera, which captures and stores digital i ...
, photo viewers and related products.
Products
The following is a list of system-on-chips developed and marketed by Actions Semiconductor, mainly targeting tablets.
Adoption
S1 MP3 players use chipsets designed by Actions.
In 2012, Actions Semiconductor produced the ATM7029 which is a quad-core
ARM Cortex-A5
The ARM Cortex-A5 is a 32-bit processor core licensed by ARM Holdings implementing the ARMv7-A architecture announced in 2009.
Overview
The Cortex-A5 is intended to replace the ARM9 and ARM11 cores for use in low-end devices. The Cortex-A5 offe ...
-based
SoC using
Vivante Corporation
Vivante Corporation is a fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, with an R&D center in Shanghai, China. The company was founded in 2004 as GiQuila and focused on the portable gaming market. The company's first produ ...
s GC1000
GPU
A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, mobil ...
. This SoC has been used in the
Ainol
Shenzhen Ainol Electronics Co., Ltd. (Chinese: 深圳艾诺电子有限公司) was a Chinese consumer electronics manufacturing and distribution company headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It specialises in Android Tablet Computers and P ...
NOVO10 Hero II tablet and other low end tablets.
For Q2 2014, Actions was reported to be fourth largest supplier of tablet processors to the Chinese market.
Legal cases
At one point, Actions was sued by
SigmaTel with SigmaTel prevailing. The findings were that Actions infringed upon SigmaTel by directly copying the ASICs designed by SigmaTel, once a world leader in the MP3 ASIC market. SigmaTel later was sold to
Freescale Semiconductor
Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer. It was created by the divestiture of the Semiconductor Products Sector of Motorola in 2004. Freescale focused their integrated circuit products on the automotive, embed ...
.
References
External links
Actions Semiconductor company website
S1MP3 website- contains end-user guides and information about firmware for S1 MP3 Players
{{Electronics industry in China
ARM architecture
Embedded microprocessors
System on a chip
Semiconductor companies of China
Fabless semiconductor companies
Companies based in Zhuhai
Chinese companies established in 2000
Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq
Chinese brands