S3 Group Licenses DAC to Aptina

DUBLIN – August 29, 2012 – S3 Group, a global independent service provider of IP and professional services to OEMs, system vendors and semiconductor companies, has licensed a Video Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) to Aptina for an upcoming CMOS image sensor. Aptina is a leading global CMOS image sensor provider providing imaging solutions to a majority of Tier-1 OEMs manufacturing and supplying digital cameras for mobile, automotive, camera, surveillance, and gaming applications.

S3 Group has leveraged its over 25 years of semiconductor design experience in the development of its Video DACs. The company specializes in high-performance, low-power ADC and DAC IPs, low jitter PLL IP, flexible Power Management IPs and comprehensive RF, Analog Sub-Systems and AFE IPs targeting a wide range of applications including Wireless, Wireline, consumer, green and industrial applications. The S3 Group contribution to Aptina involved a customized, very low area, single Video DAC supporting Composite Video. The Video DAC comes from a family of Video DACs which have been silicon proven on many different geometries supporting, Composite Video, RGB Video and HDTV.

“We chose S3 Group because of their expertise in DAC design, their extensive knowledge of the target process, the availability of a suitable DAC, their price competiveness and that they could meet our delivery schedule.,” said Sion Quinlan, Aptina’s Director of Circuit IP. “During the development, they kept us fully informed through scheduled project meetings and offered us excellent support during the integration and bring up phase of our project.”  

“Our Mixed-Signal IPs enable our customers to differentiate their end-products, reduce their design risk and therefore accelerate their time-to-revenue.  Aptina is recognized as an innovator in imaging solutions and has a reputation for working with and deploying leading-edge technology for use in a wide range of products from smartphones to cameras to cars. Customers like Aptina enable S3 Group to remain at the cutting edge of high performance Mixed Signal development. We look forward to building further on this successful project.” said Dermot Barry, VP Silicon, S3 Group.

About S3 Group:

S3 Group delivers IP and professional services to OEMs, system vendors and semiconductor companies. The company is the longest serving independent service provider in the industry, building a wealth of experience and engineering expertise over the last 25 years. In addition to design services the company has a comprehensive portfolio of RF and mixed-signal IP. The IP portfolio includes high performance ADC and DAC converters, PLLs, Analog Front Ends (AFEs), Power Management, RF Transceivers and other miscellaneous circuits which have been silicon proven at a number of silicon foundries (TSMC, GlobalFoundries, UMC,  SMIC, IBM, Tower) at nodes ranging from 180nm to 40nm and below. Global end markets served by S3 Group clients include Wireless and Wireline Communications, Digital Broadcasting, Imaging, Solar, Green Energy and Industrial. Founded in 1986, S3 Group, headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, focuses on three business areas: Semiconductor, TV Technology and Telehealth, and has development centers in Ireland, Poland, the Czech Republic and Portugal with sales offices and representatives worldwide. For further information please visit www.s3group.com/silicon and www.twitter.com/S3Group_Silicon