Ceva Inc 's

The markets in which we operate are intensely competitive. They are subject to rapid change and are significantly affected by new product introductions. We compete with other suppliers of licensed signal processing IPs. We believe that the principal competitive elements in our field are signal processing IP performance, overall chip cost, power consumption, flexibility, reliability, communication and multimedia software and algorithms availability, design cycle time, tool chain, customer support, financial strength, name recognition and reputation. We believe that we compete effectively in each of these areas, but can offer no assurance that we will have the financial resources, technical expertise, and marketing or support capabilities to compete successfully in the future.

The markets in which we compete are dominated by large, highly competent semiconductor companies that have significant brand recognition, a large installed base and a large network of support and field application engineers. We face direct and indirect competition from:

IP vendors that offer programmable or configurable DSP cores;

IP vendors that offer vision processing units for computer vision applications;

IP vendors that offer neural network processing units for AI applications;

IP vendors that offer voice software packages, including beamforming, direction of arrival and echo cancellation;

IP vendors that offer Bluetooth and Wi-Fi connectivity IPs;

IP vendors that offer hardware-based DSP implementation as opposed to software-based DSP, which is our specialization; and

internal design groups of large chip companies or OEMs that develop proprietary signal processing IP cores or engines for their own application-specific chipsets.
We face direct competition in the DSP and configurable core space mainly from Verisilicon, Cadence and Synopsys, which licenses DSP cores in addition to their respective semiconductor and EDA businesses. In AI processors, we face direct competition from EDA players in addition to a host of companies offering AI cores and accelerators such as Digital Media Professionals, (DMP), Imagination, AImotive, Cambricon and Graphcore. In the short range wireless space, we face direct competition from Arm Limited, Imagination Technologies, Mindtree and STMicroelectronics (previously ST Ericsson).

In recent years, we also have faced competition from companies that offer Central Processor Unit (CPU) intellectual property. These companies’ products are used for host functions in various applications, such as in mobile and home entertainment products. These applications typically also incorporate a programmable DSP or neural network accelerator that is responsible for communication and video/audio/voice-related tasks, neural network or in some cases connectivity capabilities. CPU companies, such as Arm Limited, Cadence, Imagination

Technologies and Synopsys have added DSP acceleration, CNN acceleration and /or connectivity solutions and make use of it to provide platform solutions in the areas of baseband, video, imaging, vision, AI, audio and connectivity.

With respect to certain large potential customers, we also compete with internal engineering teams, which may design programmable signal processing IP core products in-house. Companies such as Mediatek, Qualcomm, Samsung, Huawei and STMicroelectronics license our designs for some applications and use their own proprietary cores for other applications. These companies also may choose to license their proprietary signal processing IP cores to third parties and, as a result, become direct competitors.

Aside from the in-house research and development groups, we do not compete with any individual company across the range of our market offerings. Within particular market segments, however, we do face competition to a greater or lesser extent from other industry participants. For example, in the following specific areas we compete with the companies indicated:

in the digital embedded imaging and vision market – Arm Limited, Synopsys, Cadence and Videantis, as well as GPU IP providers such as Arm Limited, Imagination Technologies and Verisilicon; and

in audio and voice applications market – Arm Limited, Cadence, Synopsys and Verisilicon.