Q&A with Kishore Seendripu, CEO, MaxLinear
The team at MaxLinear, based in Carlsbad, in Southern California, has developed integrated circuit (IC) semiconductor technology that has applications for various consumer electronics devices. The company has focused on television in particular, and claims to be the first to deliver on the promise of an easy-to-use silicon solution to enable TV on any device. MaxLinear was founded in 2003 and is led by a management team with deep experience in semiconductors.
SUB: What primary need does MaxLinear address?
Kishore Seendripu: We started MaxLinear at the end of 2003 to build small, low-power radio frequency (RF) ICs. We saw that there was a dramatic change going on in the way television would be delivered to consumers, ranging from mobile television to digital television, to so-called “triple-play” services, that is phone, Internet and television service all from one provider. All of these markets need to deliver high-quality television that uses smaller components and consume less power. We focused our early efforts on developing TV tuner ICs that would do that dramatically better than others in the industry thanks to a proprietary CMOS based radio architecture and technology that we pioneered.
SUB: How do you make money? What is your revenue model?Kishore Seendripu: MaxLinear sells ICs to consumer electronics manufacturers and module makers in several markets, including mobile/portable TV, STB, PCTV, and automotive TV.
SUB: How did the idea for the company come about?Kishore Seendripu: My co-founders and I have many years of experience developing radio frequency IC (RF IC) technology. We had our eye on the revolutionary changes in the television market–specifically the transition from analog TV to digital TV. At the time we started the company, RF IC designers were not building broadband RF chips using digital CMOS process technology, even though CMOS process is the most used, most cost effective and most proven silicon technology in the world. The industry had decided that the RF performance required for broadband TV applications was not achievable using low cost CMOS process technology. We thought that if this could be done, not only could you make key television components less expensive, but also reduce their power consumption and size significantly. Low cost, low power, and high performance are essential elements for most TV products, especially mobile TV components. These attributes have become salient to all of MaxLinear’s products.
SUB: What is the impact of your technology on consumers?
Kishore Seendripu: We are really enabling consumers to have TV on any device, any where they want it, be it at home, in cars, on PCs, cell phones, etc. Japan is the first market to really embrace mobile TV–there are millions of cell phones sold every year there with our chips in them showing live digital TV. The innovation around our chip has been amazing, with devices that are very small, yet delivering great TV viewing experience; some of them rival the iPhone in terms of abilities and design. The mobile TV market has been slower to take off in the U.S. and Europe, but we think mobile TV is turning a corner even in these regions. Outside of mobile TV, the main benefit of our product is “greener” television viewing through lower power consumption in the set top boxes and in the TV set.
SUB: Who do you consider your competitor(s)?
Kishore Seendripu: Our primary direct RFIC competitors include Microtune, NXP, Xcieve, and others depending on the application.
SUB: How has the company been financed to this point? Who are your investors?
Kishore Seendripu: We started out bootstrapping the company: putting in our own money, working without pay, and doing contract design work. After we had designed a prototype tuner IC, we sought traditional venture capital funding. After two rounds of venture capital financing from Battery Ventures, U.S. Venture Partners, Mission Ventures, and other strategic investors, we have attained profitability. Currently, we are 120 employees and are still growing.
SUB: How many customers do you have, and what are their general demographics?
Kishore Seendripu: We have over 50 customers including mobile phone manufacturers, module makers, set top box companies, television manufacturers, PC TV system manufacturers and others spread all over the world. As a company, we are able to support our customers at their sites through a very strong applications engineering team located at multiple sites in the US and Asia.MaxLinear: www.maxlinear.com
