Profile: TranSwitch Corp (TXCC.O)

TranSwitch Corporation, incorporated on April 26, 1988, designs, develops and supplies semiconductor solutions that provide core functionality for voice, data and video communications equipment for network, enterprise and customer premises applications. The Company provides integrated multi-core network processor System-on-a-Chip (SoC) solutions and software solutions for fixed, third generation (3G) and fourth generation (4G) mobile, voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and multimedia infrastructures. For the customer-premises market, the Company offers a family of communications processors that provide interoperable connectivity solutions that enable the distribution and presentation of high-definition (HD) content for consumer electronic, and personal computer markets.

The Company, in addition to a portfolio of integrated circuit products addressing voice, data, wireless and video markets, it supplies a number of products for Ethernet and high definition video (HDMI and DisplayPort protocol) applications, as well as custom design services. The Company offers several products that combine multi-protocol capabilities on a single chip, enabling its customers to develop network equipment for triple play (voice, data and video) applications. A key attribute of our products is their inherent flexibility. A number of the Company’s products incorporate embedded programmable micro-processors.

Converged Network Infrastructure

The Company’s Entropia Series of Processors are integrated system-on-chip solutions each incorporating multiple embedded reduced instruction set computer (RISC) and digital signal processor (DSP) processors for encoding, decoding and transcoding VOIP traffic according to a multitude of protocols and standards adopted in different networks worldwide. Entropia III and IV can process up to 1,008 voice channels for high capacity applications, while its Entropia II LP product supports medium density applications requiring up to 336 voice channels. The Entropia product line is designed for wire-line and wireless carrier equipment, such as media gateways, soft switches, integrated multimedia systems (IMS) and multi-service access nodes (MSAN), as well as in enterprise network applications, such as IP-PBX. In addition to VoIP processing, its Entropia products provide a system level solutions by incorporating a variety of other related functions, such as FAX relay, packet processing, circuit emulation, signaling and control required for operation in the carrier’s network.

The Company’s products address the formats and data speeds employed in the access portion of the network. It provides solutions that cover both North American (synchronous optical networking/asynchronous (SONET/Async)), as well as International (synchronous digital hierarchy/plesiouchonous Digital digital hierarchy (SDH/PDH)) standards. Data rates covered by its products range from 1.5 megabits per second to 2.5 gigabits per second. Its EtherMap and EtherPHAST product families address the need of carriers to transport data traffic over their existing SONET, SDH and PDH networks. The Company’s VTXP products provide grooming of TDM circuits. Tributary Switches include switch fabric devices and adjunct switching devices that enable traffic to be switched or re-arranged (groomed) to use network capacity. Its PacketTrunk family of circuit emulation and clock recovery devices provide interworking capability between the new data (IP) based services and infrastructures and the legacy voice (TDM) based services and infrastructures.

The Company’s Mustang product is a System-on-Chip solution for EPON optical network unit (ONU) equipment, which is deployed at the customer location, typically on the outside wall of a dwelling unit. Its Mustang product family consists of its ME250 and ME300 products. These turnkey fiber to the home (FTTH) solutions are for service providers deploying EPON to deliver triple play services, such as bandwidth-intensive Internet protocol television ( IPTV). Its COLT processor is a System-on-Chip solution for the optical line terminator (OLT) equipment, which resides in the carrier’s central office location and is connected to multiple remote ONUs via fiber. Its Diplomat-ONT product is an integrated SoC solution for gigabit-per-second passive optical network (GPON) ONU applications equipped to provide up to four channels of VoIP processing and is interoperable with OLTs from the equipment suppliers worldwide.

Voice traffic is carried over the fiber portion of the network in packetized form (VoIP), and is decoded and converted to the analog form at the ONT so it can be transmitted over the copper wires. The Company’s Entropia III-C series of processors are designed to serve these applications. The multi-subscriber ONT equipment in FTTB or FTTN architectures performs the function of an access multiplexor in that it must appropriately rout the appropriate data from the fiber connection to the each subscriber over a separate copper connection and vice versa. The Company’s Diplomat-IP Access Controller is designed to provide this functionality for xDSL equipment, such as MSAN, and MDU-ONT for FTTN and FTTB networks.

Broadband Customer Premises Equipment

The Company’s Atlanta processor family is a multi-service SoC for customer premises equipment that supports toll-quality telephone voice, fax and routing functionality over any broadband access network. System designs based on the Atlanta product family can connect directly to a broadband modem or be added as part of a small office-home office (SOHO) network. The Atlanta A70 product is the family’s entry level SoC and the A80 SoC adds the capability to interface with any wireless fidelity (WiFi) or high-speed adapter. The A90 SoC is optimized for the SOHO market with four voice channels and a routing engine available at 100 megabit per second. The A100 SoC adds security and encryption of all data and voice. A2000 is a multi-core SoC supporting wire-speed gigabit routing performance, up to eight channels of low-bit rate VoIP processing or four channels of HD voice processing and a set of data security features. During the year ended December 31, 2010, the Company introduced the Atlanta 1000 (A1000), which supports a range of applications, including voice-enabled gateway routers for home and small office use, as well as IEEE 802.11n WiFi routers.

In 2010, the Company introduced a technology called HDP. It is a technology developed for High Definition Television (HDTV) and 3-dimensional television (3D-TV) applications. It combines both HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort capability in a single circuit enabling HDTV and 3D-TV manufacturers to support either standard with a single connector. The Company’s MystiPHY 110 and MystiPHY 1011 DSP-based Ethernet transceiver cores address 10/100 megabit per second and 10/100/1000 megabit per second Ethernet data-rate specifications.

The Company competes with Applied Micro Circuits Corporation, Broadcom Corporation, Exar Corporation, Infineon Technologies, LSI Corporation, Mindspeed Technologies, Inc., PMC-Sierra Inc., Texas Instruments Inc., Vitesse Semiconductor Corporation, Altera Corporation, Xilinx, Inc, Silicon Image, Inc., Analog Devices, Inc. and NXP Semiconductors, NV.