Dolphin Integration

Dolphin Integration SA

Industry	Semiconductors
Founded	1985
Founder	Michel Depeyrot, Jean-François Pollet, Louis Zangara, SAGEM etc.
Headquarters	Meylan , France
Number of locations	Meylan, France ; Laval, Quebec, Canada ; Netanya, Israel
Area served	International
Key people	Philippe Berger (CEO), Frédéric Renoux (EVP of Sales), Denis Scherrer (CFO), Agnes Chemin (HRD)
Products	libraries of standard cells and memories, digital-to-analog converters, analog-to-digital converters, Electronic Design Automation (EDA), power regulators
Services	ASIC / SoC integration and Custom Fabless Services
Revenue	14.789 M€ (FY 2013)
Net income	1.108 M€ (FY 2013)
Owner	Soitec (60%), MBDA (40%)
Number of employees	160, including 130 Engineers
Subsidiaries	Dolphin Integration DI-Inc, Dolphin Integration DI-Ltd
Website	dolphin-integration.com

Dolphin Integration is a French Corporation headquartered at Meylan near Grenoble, France, since 1985. They partake in the design industry for microelectronics, which leverages the dynamics of the semiconductor industry. Their focus on CMOS Virtual Components of Silicon IP aims at enabling low-consumption System-on-Chip (SoC) based on digital libraries of standard cells and memories. Their historical offering is the continuation at IP level of the most popular microprocessor line ever: the Intel legacy of 8051, still prevalent in Smartcards. Their specialty offering for consumer devices includes digital-to-analog converters for sound-processing and measurement and analog-to-digital converters for audio applications with their power regulators. Their general-purpose business is in Electronic Design Automation (EDA): mixed-signal simulator, schematics editor, and mixed-signal power consumption estimator.

History[]

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.^[1]

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.

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 of Evolution Ltd (Shenzhen).

2002[]

First contract signed with Chinese customer in Shanghai at the first Design Automation Conference.

2003[]

Stock exchange listing on the French Over-the-counter market (MLDOL)^[1]

2004[]

Fall-out from DGA-funded innovation in an essential integrated circuit for the Airbus A380 ^[2]

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^[3]

Trophy of the “best service partner” in microelectronic design for the twentieth anniversary of STMicroelectronics^[4]

Transfer of stock-listing to the Alternext market (ALDOL)^[5]

2008[]

Certification ISO 9001:2008^[6]

Funding of Dolphin Integration Ltd. in Netanya, Israel for the development of Register files

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 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 ^[7]

2012[]

First contract with a European defense manufacturer, resulting from a collaborative project funded by the European Defense Agency (EDA SoC) ^[8]

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^[9]

2015[]

Dolphin Integration receives TSMC’s Open Innovation Platform® 2015 Partner of the Year Award for Specialty IP^[10]

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€ ^[11]

2019[]

Philippe Berger was appointed as new CEO ^[12]

Dolphin Integration becomes Dolphin Design.

2020[]

Silvaco acquired the memory compiler technologies and standard cell libraries of Dolphin Design.^[13]

References[]

External links[]

• The Dolphin Integration website