Dolphin Design is a semiconductor design company, founded in 2018 following its acquisition by Soitec. Formerly knows as Dolphin Integration, it is based in Meylan in the Grenoble region.

History

Dolphin Design is a semiconductor design company, created in 2018 after Dolphin Integration was acquired by Soitec. Dolphin Design is based in Meylan in the Grenoble region. It also has R&D offices in Laval, Canada and Singapore. Dolphin Integration as it was formerly know, is a semiconductor design company, established in 1985, with the mission of developing complex analog, digital and miwed-signal IPs for design companies. The catalog initially included libraries of

standard cell In semiconductor design, standard cell methodology is a method of designing application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) with mostly digital-logic features. Standard cell methodology is an example of design abstraction, whereby a low-level v ...

s and embedded memory generators, converter for measurement and high resolution audio processing, low power IPs, EDA solutions which included a

mixed signal A mixed-signal integrated circuit is any integrated circuit that has both analog circuits and digital circuits on a single semiconductor die.Soitec and MBDA. On July 16, 2019, Dolphin Integration was placed in receivership. As of 2022, the company employs 170 people. Its turnover as of December 31, 2021 is : €21 942 000.

Activities

Dolphin Design develops analog, digital and mixed-signal IPs and platforms in the area of audio, ultra-low power, AI/ML and processing. In 2020, Dolphin Design received the Solar Impulse Label, and in 2022 it received the Embedded World Award in the startup category for its AI/ML accelerator (TinyRaptor). This product was developing following a three-year collaboration with the CEA Grenoble (List Laboratory). It proposes a range of products using different technologies: Machine Learning,

Digital Signal Processor A digital signal processor (DSP) is a specialized microprocessor chip, with its architecture optimized for the operational needs of digital signal processing. DSPs are fabricated on MOS integrated circuit chips. They are widely used in audio si ...

, ASIC, Neural Processor Unit, Voltage Regulator, Edge Computing, wearables and automotive.

Market and competition

The semiconductor market has been growing rapidly since the 1970s. The growth has accelerated in the last few decades especially in the areas of IoT, Edge Computing, wearables and automotive. It collaborates with foundries companies such as: TSMC,

Global Foundries GlobalFoundries Inc. (GF or GloFo) is a multinational semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company incorporated in the Cayman Islands and headquartered in Malta, New York. Created by the divestiture of the manufacturing arm of AMD ...

, SMIC, Samsung, to develop its products.

Time line

Name

Half of their name comes from the Dolphin, referring to the French province where lies its headquarters, the Dauphiné. Their logo is a dolphin jumping with the shape of an integral symbol. It jumps over the pad-ring of an integrated circuit, which yields the other half of their name.

1985

Founding of Dolphin Integration in 1985 with a dedication to design services to the Integrated Device Makers (IDM) in the wake of deverticalization of this industry..

1986

COOPEREL prize from then FIEE, now FIEEC as the French Federation of Electrical, Electronics and Communication Industries.

1987

Partnership with the French military procurement at Direction générale de l'armement (DGA) for dual high-tech (with civil applications).

1991

Microelectronic trophy from EUROASIC for a joint project with Roland Moreno, the inventor of the

Smart card A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...

1995

Launch of Dolphin's first Virtual Component of Silicon IP sold to Fabless IC suppliers at the time of emergence of TSMC as the first foundry. First foray into Asian markets started in Japan.

1997

First-ever conference-exposition for the nascent IP business with “IP-97” in Santa Clara. Market entry into Taiwan.

1999

Acquisition of the first working virtual components ( i8051) from Richard Watts Associates who had designed it for the Music

Synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

of Evolution Ltd ( Shenzhen).

2002

First contract signed with Chinese customer in Shanghai at the first

Design Automation Conference The Design Automation Conference, or DAC, is an annual event, a combination of a technical conference and a trade show, both specializing in electronic design automation (EDA). DAC is the oldest and largest conference in EDA, started in 1964. ...

2003

Stock exchange listing on the French Over-the-counter market (MLDOL)

2004

Fall-out from DGA-funded innovation in an essential integrated circuit for the Airbus A380

2007

Funding of Dolphin Integration Inc. in Montreal, Quebec, Canada for the development of power regulators. Reward at the tenth edition of Innovation Trophy, organized by the French National Industrial Property Institute Trophy of the “best service partner” in microelectronic design for the twentieth anniversary of

STMicroelectronics STMicroelectronics N.V. commonly referred as ST or STMicro is a Dutch multinational corporation and technology company of French-Italian origin headquartered in Plan-les-Ouates near Geneva, Switzerland and listed on the French stock market. ST ...

Transfer of stock-listing to the Alternext market (ALDOL)

2008

Certification ISO 9001:2008 Funding of Dolphin Integration Ltd. in

Netanya Netanya (also known as Natanya, he, נְתַנְיָה) is a city in the Northern Central District of Israel, and is the capital of the surrounding Sharon plain. It is north of Tel Aviv, and south of Haifa, between Poleg stream and Wingate I ...

, Israel for the development of

Register file A register file is an array of processor registers in a central processing unit (CPU). Register banking is the method of using a single name to access multiple different physical registers depending on the operating mode. Modern integrated circuit- ...

2010

3 partnership agreements with TSMC for audio codecs at 40, 55 and 65 nm. First sale in Korea of high-resolution measurement converters for

Smart grid A smart grid is an electrical grid which includes a variety of operation and energy measures including: *Advanced metering infrastructure (of which smart meters are a generic name for any utility side device even if it is more capable e.g. a f ...

applications

2011

First partnership with TSMC for developing a sponsored library offering “TSMC IP partner award” for analog/mixed-signal IP for high SNR audio converters

2012

First contract with a European defense manufacturer, resulting from a collaborative project funded by the

European Defense Agency The European Defence Agency (EDA) is an agency of the European Union (EU) that promotes and facilitates integration between member states within the EU's Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP). The EDA is headed by the High Representativ ...

(EDA SoC)

2013

Renewal of the “innovative company” qualification by the BPI-France (the French Public Investment Bank)

2014

Dolphin Integration receives TSMC's Open Innovation Platform® 2014 Partner of the Year Award for Specialty IP

2015

Dolphin Integration receives TSMC's Open Innovation Platform® 2015 Partner of the Year Award for Specialty IP

2018

Dolphin Integration enters a new era following the appointment of Christian Dupont as CEO of the company. Dolphin Integration enters bankruptcy proceedings https://www.dolphin-integration.com/index.php/investors/news/448 Dolphin Integration has been acquired by Soitec (60%) and MBDA (40%) for a total amount of 5 M€

2019

Philippe Berger was appointed as new CEO Dolphin Integration becomes Dolphin Design.

2020

Silvaco acquired the memory compiler technologies and standard cell libraries of Dolphin Design.

References

{{Reflist

External links

The Dolphin Integration website
Software companies of France Electronic design automation