Headquartered in Mountain View, California, CEVA is the leading licensor of
signal processing platforms and artificial intelligence processors for a smarter,
connected world. We partner with semiconductor companies and OEMs worldwide
to create power-efficient, intelligent and connected devices for a range of
end markets, including mobile, consumer, automotive, industrial and IoT. Our
ultra-low-power hardware IPs and software solutions address many of the most
complex technologies for imaging and computer vision, neural networks, sound,
long (cellular) and short range wireless and artificial intelligent (AI) processors.
Our portfolio includes comprehensive platforms for 5G baseband processing for
handsets and RAN, complete end-to-end offerings for cellular IoT, front-end
voice software and algorithms along with DSPs for voice enabled devices and
AI assistants, advanced imaging computer vision for any camera-enabled device,
and a family of self-contained AI processors that address a wide range of applications.
For short range wireless, we offer the industry’s most widely adopted
IPs for Bluetooth (low energy and dual mode) and Wi-Fi (802.11 b/g/n/ac/ax up
to 4x4).
Our technologies are licensed to leading semiconductor and OEM companies throughout
the world. These companies incorporate our IP into application-specific integrated
circuits (“ASICs”) and application-specific standard products (“ASSPs”)
that they manufacture, market and sell into wireless, consumer, automotive and
IoT companies. Our state-of-the-art technology has shipped in more than 9 billion
chips to date for a wide range of diverse end markets. One in three handsets
sold worldwide is powered by CEVA.
Our revenue mix comprises primarily of IP licensing fees and related revenues,
and royalties generated from the shipments of products deploying our IP. Related
revenues include revenues from post contract support, training and sale of development
systems.
We have built a strong network of licensing customers who rely on our technologies
to deploy their silicon solutions. Our comprehensive customer base includes
many of the world’s leading semiconductors and OEMs. Actions, ASR, Autotalks,
Beken, Brite, Broadcom, Celeno, Cirrus Logic, Dialog Semiconductor, DSP Group,
Espressif, FujiFilm, iCatch, Intel, Leadcore, LG Electronics, Mediatek, Nextchip,
Novatek, NXP, ON Semiconductor, Oticon, Panasonic, RDA, Renesas, Rockchip, Rohm,
Samsung, Sanechips, Sharp, Silver Spring Networks, Socionext, Sony, Socionext,
Spreadtrum, STMicroelectronics, Toshiba, Vatics, Yamaha and ZTE all leverage
CEVA’s industry-leading processors, platforms and connectivity IPs.
DSP Cores
Digital signal processing is a key technology that is powering many of today’s
fastest growing electronics markets. Digital signal processors (DSPs) are specialized
high-speed processors that are optimized for performing repetitive arithmetic
calculations on an array of data. DSPs provide the foundation supporting a vast
majority of today’s electronic products that are smart and connected and
enable sensing and wireless communications capabilities (e.g. LTE and 5G baseband
processing, computer vision, deep neural network, sound processing and analytics).
AI Processors
Artificial intelligence processors are a new breed of processors designed to
enable AI-related workloads such as classification, pattern matching, prediction
and detection to be performed on a device, with no cloud connection required.
These processors mimic the human brain, allowing them to perform cognitive tasks
for a wide range of functions, including vision, sound, real-time translation,
user behavior and malware detection. AI processors will make their way into
billions of devices in the coming years, including IoT, mobile, medical, industrial
and automotive applications.
Short Range Wireless IPs
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth low energy and dual mode are key technologies for any company
looking to address the Internet-of-Things (“IoT”). Moreover, many
companies wish to integrate these connectivity technologies into SoC designs
rather than provide connectivity through an additional chip in the system. Through
our connectivity business unit, we are able to expand further into the Wi-Fi
and Bluetooth smart connectivity markets. The advent of IoT has resulted in
significant demand for connectivity IPs that solves a crucial void in many companies’
strategies to address this burgeoning market. Wi-Fi and Bluetooth standards
are constantly evolving, and the many different end applications where these
technologies are being deployed require further customization. By licensing
rather than developing these technologies in house, companies can now get access
to the latest standards and profiles from CEVA without undertaking the expensive
research and development costs required to develop these technologies internally.
Design Gap
The demand for smarter, better connected mobile, consumer, automotive, industrial
and IoT devices continues to grow. These devices require more connectivity,
greater feature sets and a richer user experience. Semiconductor manufacturers
face ever growing pressures to make smaller, feature-rich integrated circuits
that are more reliable, less expensive and have greater performance. These two
trends are occurring concurrently in the face of decreasing product lifecycles
and constrained battery power. The advent of wireless and connectivity technologies
like 5G, Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 5 and multimedia technologies such as
advanced image enhancement, computer vision, deep learning and voice and audio
pre- and post-processing have further increased these pressures. While semiconductor
manufacturing processes have advanced significantly to allow a substantial increase
in the number of circuits placed on a single chip, resources for design capabilities
have not kept pace with the advances in manufacturing processes, resulting in
a growing “design gap” between the increasing manufacturing potential
and the constrained design capabilities.
CEVA addresses the requirements of the mobile, consumer, automotive, industrial
and IoT markets by designing and licensing a broad range of robust, application-specific
signal processing platforms which enable the rapid design of solutions for developing
a wide variety of applications, including communications & connectivity,
audio & voice, imaging & vision and storage.
Given the “design gap,” as well as the increasing complexity and
the unique skill set required to develop a system-on-chip, many semiconductor
design and manufacturing companies increasingly choose to license proven intellectual
property, such as processor cores (e.g. DSP, CPU, GPU and AI), connectivity
products, memory and application-specific platforms, from silicon intellectual
property (SIP) companies like CEVA rather than develop those technologies in-house.
In addition, with more complex designs and shorter time to market, it is no
longer cost efficient and becoming progressively more difficult for most semiconductor
companies to develop the signal processing platform, incorporating the DSP,
subsystem and software, for their target application. For connectivity, with
ever-evolving standards and a huge variety of uses, most semiconductor companies
cannot develop and maintain this technology in-house. As a result, companies
increasingly seek to license these IPs from CEVA or a third-party community
of developers, such as CEVAnet, CEVA’s third-party network.
Our IP Business Model
Our objective is for our CEVA signal processing platforms and AI processors
to become the de facto technologies across the mobile, consumer, automotive,
industrial and IoT markets. To enable this goal, we license our technologies
on a worldwide basis to semiconductor and OEM companies that design and manufacture
products that combine CEVA-based solutions with their own differentiating technology.
We believe our business model offers us some key advantages. By not focusing
on manufacturing or selling silicon products, we are free to widely license
our technology and free to focus most of our resources on research and development.
By choosing to license our IP, manufacturers can achieve the advantage of creating
their own differentiated solutions and develop their own unique product roadmaps.
Through our licensing efforts, we have established a worldwide community developing
CEVA-based solutions, and therefore we can leverage their strengths, customer
relationships, proprietary technology advantages, and existing sales and marketing
infrastructure. As an example, our CEVA-XCnet partner program focuses on various
technology and solution providers with complimentary offerings for our CEVA-XC
communication processor addressing wireless, infrastructure, smart grid and
connectivity markets. In addition, as our intellectual property is widely licensed
and deployed, system OEM companies can obtain CEVA-based chipsets from a wide
range of suppliers, thus reducing dependence on any one supplier and fostering
price competition, both of which help to contain the cost of CEVA-based products.
We operate a licensing and royalty business model. We typically charge a license
fee for access to our technology and a royalty fee for each unit of silicon
which incorporates our technology. License fees are invoiced in accordance with
agreed-upon contractual terms. Royalties are reported and invoiced one quarter
in arrears and generally are based on a fixed unit rate or a percentage of the
sale price for the CEVA-based silicon product.
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