Entropic Communications is a provider of

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 ...

products for the connected home. Founded in 2001, the company is headquartered in

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United States ...

, USA, and maintains offices worldwide. The fabless semiconductor company invented the MoCA® (

Multimedia over Coax Alliance The Multimedia over Coax Alliance (MoCA) is an international standards consortium that publishes specifications for networking over coaxial cable. The technology was originally developed to distribute IP television in homes using existing cabl ...

) home networking technology, creating

Direct Broadcast Satellite Satellite television is a service that delivers television programming to viewers by relaying it from a communications satellite orbiting the Earth directly to the viewer's location. The signals are received via an outdoor parabolic antenna comm ...

(DBS) Outdoor Unit (ODU) single-wire technology, and developing the industry's first ARM® processor and OpenGL graphics

Set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...

(STB),

System-on-a-Chip A system on a chip or system-on-chip (SoC ; pl. ''SoCs'' ) is an integrated circuit that integrates most or all components of a computer or other electronic system. These components almost always include a central processing unit (CPU), memory ...

(SoC). Entropic completed its initial public offering on December 7, 2007, listing on the

NASDAQ The Nasdaq Stock Market () (National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations Stock Market) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the US by volume, and ranked second ...

exchange under the ticker symbol ENTR. Entropic was acquired by

MaxLinear MaxLinear is an American hardware company. Founded in 2003, it provides highly integrated radio-frequency (RF) analog and mixed-signal semiconductor products for broadband communications applications. It is a New York Stock Exchange-traded comp ...

for a total consideration of $287 million on February 3, 2015.

Products

Entropic is a semiconductor company in the connected home market and makes Integrated Circuit (IC) technology and platform software: * STB SoC Solutions: digital STB components and systems for satellite, terrestrial, cable and IP television (

IPTV Internet Protocol television (IPTV) is the delivery of television content over Internet Protocol (IP) networks. This is in contrast to delivery through traditional terrestrial, satellite, and cable television formats. Unlike downloaded media, ...

), markets. It primarily consists of STB SoCs, but also includes

DOCSIS Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) is an international telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-bandwidth data transfer to an existing cable television (CATV) system. It is used by many cable televisio ...

modems, interface devices and media processors. * Home Networking: In 2004, Entropic introduced its MoCA home networking product, which was a chipset to use coaxial cable in a home network. It announced MoCA 1.0, 1.1 and MoCA 2.0, and its MoCA chips are deployed at U.S. service providers including

Comcast Comcast Corporation (formerly known as American Cable Systems and Comcast Holdings),Before the AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corpora ...

Cox Communications Cox Communications, Inc. (also known as Cox Cable and formerly Cox Broadcasting Corporation, Dimension Cable Services and Times-Mirror Cable) is an American digital cable television provider, telecommunications and home automation services. It i ...

DIRECTV DirecTV (trademarked as DIRECTV) is an American multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital satellite service serving the United States. It ...

Time Warner Cable Time Warner Cable, Inc. (TWC) was an American cable television company. Before it was acquired by Charter Communications on May 18, 2016, it was ranked the second largest cable company in the United States by revenue behind only Comcast, operat ...

, and

Verizon Verizon Communications Inc., commonly known as Verizon, is an American multinational telecommunications conglomerate and a corporate component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The company is headquartered at 1095 Avenue of the Americas in ...

as well as in Europe via UPC/

Liberty Global Liberty Global plc is a British-Dutch-American multinational telecommunications company with headquarters in London, Amsterdam and Denver. Its respective legal names are Liberty Global Plc, Liberty Global B.V. and Liberty Global, Inc., with ...

. * Broadband Access Solutions: Entropic delivers Ethernet-over-Coax (EoC) broadband access products, under its c.LINK™ brand. The EoC technology delivers “last few hundred meter” connectivity for broadband access to single-family homes and multiple dwelling units. It is predominantly deployed in China, and helps MSOs meet the government-mandated Next Generation Broadband (NGB) initiative. * Direct Broadcast Satellite Outdoor Unit (DBS ODU) Solutions: This technology claims to simplify the installation required for simultaneous reception of multiple channels from multiple satellites over a single cable. It includes ICs for its Band Translation Switch (BTS), Channel Stacking Switch (CSS™) and digital Channel Stacking Switch. It is deployed at DBS operators including

DISH Network DISH Network Corporation (DISH, an acronym for DIgital Sky Highway) is an American television provider and the owner of the direct-broadcast satellite provider Dish, commonly known as Dish Network, and the over-the-top IPTV service, Sling TV. A ...

Canal Digital Canal Digital was a Nordic pay TV and internet service provider in Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland that was founded in March 1997 as a joint venture between the French pay TV company Canal+ and the Norwegian telecommunications operator Te ...

and Sky Italia.

In Asia

In 2005, the company opened its Asia regional headquarters in Hong Kong. It also started operating in Korea in 2010 and in Japan in 2011.

Controversy

In March 2014, Entropic's former CEO

Patrick Henry Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736June 6, 1799) was an American attorney, planter, politician and orator known for declaring to the Second Virginia Convention (1775): " Give me liberty, or give me death!" A Founding Father, he served as the first an ...

was charged with three misdemeanors. Two of the charges were dropped. The third was reduced to an infraction. The charges stemmed from an altercation at Sundance Film Festival involving reality TV star Ariane Bellamar. On June 19th, 2014 he was found guilty of the assault charge; his sentence consisted of a $400 fine and 40 hours of community service. He was also ordered to undergo an assessment for alcohol and anger management. Patrick Henry was not terminated from his position. In September 2014 Entropic hired

Barclays Barclays () is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as two divisions, Barclays UK and Barclays International, supported by a service company, Barclays Execution Services. Barclays traces ...

to explore the possibilities of selling the business, which concluded with a sale to

on February 3, 2015. Patrick Henry resigned as CEO prior to the sale, in November 2014. Under Patrick Henry's leadership, Entropic Communications completed its first initial public offering and introduced several technologies. On November 10th, 2014, a decision by the Board of Directors stated that it was the right time for a leadership transition, leading to Dr. Ted Tewksbury replacing Patrick Henry as interim President and Chief Executive Officer.

Major Acquisitions

* RF Magic, Inc. (2007) – Acquisition of DBS ODU technology and products *

Trident Microsystems Trident Microsystems was a fabless semiconductor company that in the 1990s, it became a well-known supplier of integrated circuits (commonly called "chips") for video display controllers used in video cards and on motherboards for desktop PCs ...

, Inc. (2012) acquisition of selected assets related to Trident's STB SoC solutions, including digital STB components and systems for satellite, terrestrial, cable and IP television (IPTV), markets *

PLX Technology PLX Technology was a manufacturer of integrated circuits focused on PCI Express and ethernet technologies. On August 12, 2014, Broadcom Inc. (formerly Avago Technologies), acquired the company. History The company was founded in 1986 by Mike S ...

, Inc. (2012) – acquisition of selected assets relating to PLX's direct broadcast satellite intellectual property and corresponding technologies including the digital channel stacking switch (dCSS) semiconductor product * Mobius Semiconductor, Inc. (2013) Acquisition of assets related to analog mixed-signal semiconductor solutions, including ADCs, DACs, ADPLLs,

SerDes {{Use American English, date = March 2019 A Serializer/Deserializer (SerDes) is a pair of functional blocks commonly used in high speed communications to compensate for limited input/output. These blocks convert data between serial data and paral ...

and other proprietary intellectual property

References

{{Reflist Semiconductor companies of the United States Companies based in San Diego Companies formerly listed on the Nasdaq