C-Cube Microsystems, Inc., was an early company in
video compression
In information theory, data compression, source coding, or bit-rate reduction is the process of encoding information using fewer bits than the original representation. Any particular compression is either lossy or lossless. Lossless compression ...
technology as well as the implementation of that technology into semiconductor
integrated circuit
An integrated circuit (IC), also known as a microchip or simply chip, is a set of electronic circuits, consisting of various electronic components (such as transistors, resistors, and capacitors) and their interconnections. These components a ...
s and systems. C-Cube was the first company to deliver on the market opportunity presented by the conversion of image and video data from analog to digital formats enabling markets such as
VideoCD,
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...
,
DirecTV
DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...
,
digital cable
Digital cable is the distribution of cable television using digital data and video compression. The technology was first developed by General Instrument. By 2000, most cable companies offered digital features, eventually replacing their previo ...
, and
non-linear editing system
Non-linear editing (NLE) is a form of offline editing for audio, video, and image editing. In offline editing, the original content is not modified in the course of editing. In non-linear editing, edits are specified and modified by speciali ...
s.
History
C-Cube was founded on August 8, 1988 by Edmund Sun from
Weitek
Weitek Corporation was an American Microprocessor, chip-design company that originally focused on floating-point units for a number of commercial Central processing unit, CPU designs. During the early to mid-1980s, Weitek designs could be found ...
and Alexandre Balkanski. Early funding came from VC firms
Hambrecht & Quist and JAFCO America Ventures as well as Japanese farm equipment manufacturer
Kubota
is a Japanese multinational corporation based in Osaka. It was established in 1890. The corporation produces many products including tractors and other agricultural machinery, Heavy equipment, construction equipment, engines, vending machines, P ...
Ltd.
Image and video technology was just beginning to make the transition from analog (VHS, Betamax, etc.) to new digital-base formats. The key issue was the amount of bandwidth required to transmit or store the digital content. Digital video compression was a key enabling technology that made digital video practical. C-Cube engineers drove the early standards for digital compression, including Eric Hamilton, chair of the
JPEG
JPEG ( , short for Joint Photographic Experts Group and sometimes retroactively referred to as JPEG 1) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degr ...
committee,
and Didier LeGall, chair of the
MPEG
The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) is an alliance of working groups established jointly by International Organization for Standardization, ISO and International Electrotechnical Commission, IEC that sets standards for media coding, includ ...
video committee. As a result of their familiarity of the standardization process and the standards themselves, C-Cube was able to gain advantageous knowledge in the implementation of the algorithms into high-performance silicon.
Early on, the company was recognized for technical leadership but was largely unable to turn leadership into revenues and profits. The company found focus with the hiring of Bill O'Meara as CEO in 1991. He hired a new professional management staff and procured $10 million in added investment from
Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...
,
Texas Instruments
Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is an American multinational semiconductor company headquartered in Dallas, Texas. It is one of the top 10 semiconductor companies worldwide based on sales volume. The company's focus is on developing analog ...
, and
AMD
Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...
in late 1992 and enabled the company to drive toward profitability based on the development of products including the CL550 JPEG
codec
A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder.
In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...
, the CL950
MPEG II (prototype) decoder, and the CL450 MPEG I decoder.
These early-to-market devices proved the concept of digital video compression to a number of large
OEM customers and led to the development of next-generation industry-enabling products including the CL4000 MPEG II encoder family that enabled the
DirecTV
DirecTV, LLC is an American Multichannel television in the United States, multichannel video programming distributor based in El Segundo, California. Originally launched on June 17, 1994, its primary service is a digital Satellite television, s ...
program from Hughes and the CL480 MPEG I decoder that drove the
VideoCD market in Japan and China in the mid 1990s.
C-Cube went public on the
NASDAQ
The Nasdaq Stock Market (; National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations) is an American stock exchange based in New York City. It is the most active stock trading venue in the U.S. by volume, and ranked second on the list ...
exchange under the symbol CUBE in 1994. Its board of directors included chairman
Don Valentine
Donald Thomas Valentine (June 26, 1932 – October 25, 2019) was an American venture capitalist who concentrated mainly on technology companies in the United States. As the founder of Sequoia Capital, he has been referred to as the "grandfathe ...
of
Sequoia Capital
Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...
,
T. J. Rodgers of
Cypress Semiconductor
Cypress Semiconductor Corporation was an American semiconductor design and manufacturing company. It offered NOR flash memories, F-RAM and SRAM Traveo microcontrollers, PSoCs, PMICs, capacitive touch-sensing controllers, Wireless BLE Bluet ...
, and Gregorio Reyes of
Sandisk. O'Meara retired in 1995, turning over the office to founder Alex Balkanski. Balkanski was responsible for incubating video compression equipment company DiviCom starting in 1993 and C-Cube eventually acquired them in 1996. After this acquisition, the company changed its focus from strictly semiconductors to being both a chip and system supplier. Other acquisitions bolstered PC driver software and reference design expertise including the purchase of the software driver unit of Ring Zero as well as Media Computer Technologies (MCT) in 1995. Umesh Padval was brought in to run C-Cube Semiconductor in 1998.
During the late 1990s, C-Cube was unable to repeat its runaway hits seen earlier in the decade. The company sold its DiviCom division to
Harmonic Lightwaves in May, 2000 for nearly $1.7 billion. C-Cube Semiconductor (Nasdaq CUBED) was eventually sold to competitor
LSI Logic
LSI Logic Corporation was an American company founded in Santa Clara, California, was a pioneer in the ASIC and EDA industries. It evolved over time to design and sell semiconductors and software that accelerated storage and networking in data ...
in March 2001 in a stock transaction worth $878 million. LSI sold off the consumer products business (including what was C-Cube) to
Magnum Semiconductor
Magnum Semiconductor Inc. was a video compression technology company headquartered in Milpitas, California, and with an engineering branch at Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It traded under the Magnum Semiconductor name between its foundation in 2003, ...
in 2007.
Products
References
External links
* {{web archive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20010202063500/http://www.c-cube.com/, title=Official website
Computer companies established in 1988
Fabless semiconductor companies
Companies based in Milpitas, California
Defunct companies based in California
Defunct semiconductor companies of the United States
Defunct computer companies of the United States
Defunct computer hardware companies