Marseille takes major steps toward transforming CE silicon development

SANTA CLARA, USA: Marking an important business milestone, Marseille Networks has received $4.5 million in Series B funding from new and current investors.

With these funds, Marseille plans to kick off the production process for its first line of physical chips, the VTV-1200 series of complex Quad HD video upconverter processor for the BluRay DVD, AVR, All-in-One PC, and set top box markets. This marks a Silicon Valley first, where a semiconductor startup had the ability to go from development to production of a highly integrated, 65nm silicon with less than $12 million in overall investment, all while fine tuning the chip’s feature sets assuring market readiness prior to manufacturing.

“In today’s economic environment, it’s great to see a silicon startup that can move so far in development with a minimal up-front investment,” said Shahril Anwar Mohd Yunos, CEO of Kumpulan Modal Perdana Sdn Bhd, an ongoing Marseille investor. “The next 12 months will be pivotal for the company as they enter into production of their first chip, while continuing to generate revenue prior to chip fabrication from their Virtual Silicon platform.”

The company’s proprietary Virtual Silicon rapid prototyping platform breaks the traditional silicon development model from the design process through to mass market manufacturing. The platform allows for semiconductor design in software and real-time feature testing in a working prototype prior to tape-out. This enables Marseille and its customers to collaborate early on in the product development cycle and build the right product, for the right market, at the right time.

Additionally, Marseille can generate revenue prior to chip manufacturing by offering CE manufacturers a Virtual Silicon development platform. This can be used in-house allowing product engineers to test and verify complex technologies, like 4K video enabled set top boxes and large screen TVs.

Finally, the Virtual Silicon platform enables Marseille to build chips that have been validated by CE OEMs for quality and features, thereby lowering overall product adoption and manufacturing risks.

“Semiconductor technology still provides the backbone for a device’s feature-rich experience, therefore we’ve set out to reduce the risk and cost associated with developing new technologies,” said Amine Chabane, CEO of Marseille Networks. “With the Marseille Virtual Silicon platform and the help of our investors, we are ready to prove that we have an innovation engine on our hands that will transform the silicon development process in terms of cost, performance and time to market.”