Profile: Zoran Corporation (ZRAN.O)

Zoran Corporation is a provider of digital solutions in the digital entertainment and digital imaging market. Zoran has developed high-performance digital audio and video, imaging applications and Connect Share Entertain technologies for the digital home. The Company’s products consist of integrated circuits and related products used in digital versatile disc (DVD), players, movie and home theater systems, digital cameras and video editing systems. It provides integrated circuits (ICs), software and platforms for digital television applications that enable the delivery and display of digital video content through a set-top box or television, as well as digital imaging products consisting of semiconductor hardware and software that enable users to print, scan, process and transmit documents to computer peripherals that perform printing functions. Zoran also provides high-performance, low-power application processors, technology and products for the multimedia mobile phone market. The Company sells its products to original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) that incorporate them into products for consumer and commercial applications. On June 12, 2008, the Company completed the acquisition of Let It Wave, which is a fabless development-stage semiconductor company.

The Company’s products are based on integrated application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and system-on-a-chip (SoC) products. It also licenses software and other intellectual property. Zoran operates in two segments: Consumer and Imaging. The Consumer group provides products for use in DVD players, recordable DVD players, standard and high-definition digital television products, digital cameras and multimedia mobile phones. The Imaging group provides products used in digital copiers, laser and inkjet printers, as well as multifunction peripherals. Zoran’s product offerings consist of four principal product families: DVD, digital television (DTV), mobile and digital imaging.

DVD

Zoran’s Vaddis processors perform all the audio and video decoding and display requirements of the DVD specification, including moving pictures experts group (MPEG) 2 audio and video decoding, Dolby Digital, DivX and Meridian Lossless PCM (MLP) audio decoding, on-screen display, decryption required for copyright protection and presentation of graphic information. The HDXtreme technology allows DVD playback and viewing of joint photographic experts group (JPEG) pictures on a high-definition television (HDTV) with a high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) interface in a resolution of up to 1080p. It also provides DVD player reference designs based on its Vaddis product family that help its customers accelerate time to market for their products.

DTV

Zoran’s DTV division offers integrated circuits (IC) products for both high-definition and standard-definition formats for digital televisions, set-top boxes and related applications, including personal video recorders. Its system-on-a-chip products utilize advanced central processing units (CPUs) resulting in higher performance with lower power consumption and its highly integrated SupraHD product line addresses the mainstream market segment, as well as high-end and entry-level segments of the digital television and analog-to-digital broadcast transition markets. In the Set-top box domain, the Company is shipping its products to the China cable and Europe free-to-air market.

Mobile

The Company’s camera-on-a-chip (COACH) processors are integrated SoC solutions that include most of the electronics of a digital camera, which can be connected directly to a high-resolution charge-coupled device (CCD) or complementary metal-oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor. The COACH IC processes the video information in real time, compresses the captured image in real time, while interfacing to a liquid crystal display (LCD), television or micro display and to all types of flash memory. Among the capabilities of the COACH product is the ability to transfer in real time, over a universal serial bus (USB) bus, high-quality video to the personal computer (PC) and function as a PC video camera. The COACH products also allow for direct connection to a printer, including color correction and special effects, for the non-PC consumer environment. The COACH product is supplemented by digital camera reference designs, CamON and CamMini, products.

Zoran’s newest COACH processors utilize MPEG-4 and H.264 Codecs to incorporate basic digital camcorder capabilities for displaying video clips on a PC or television. Its mobile products division also offers mobile multimedia telephone products. The Company’s APPROACH media processors support a variety of multimedia functions, including image signal processing (ISP), image quality, video play and record capabilities, multi-standard, end-to-end Mobile television decoding, integrated television-out, and high speed USB 2.0.

Digital Imaging

The Company’s Quatro products address both the consumer market for personal printers and the business market for A4 laser printers and multifunction printer (MFPs). The Quatro product is a programmable SoC solution for imaging and printing appliances, including multifunction color inkjet and laser devices that feature print, copy, scan and fax. Quatro ASICs are designed for mid-range and entry level inkjet printers, as well as more business oriented laser printers. IPS modular, scalable embedded software product that provides processing and control functions for document imaging peripheral devices supporting all common page description languages.

Zoran competes with MediaTek Inc., Sunplus Technology Co. Ltd., Ambarella, Fujitsu, Novatech, Sunplus, Texas Instruments, Inc., AMD, Broadcom Corp., CoreLogic, MtekVision Co. Ltd., nVidia, Telechips Inc., M-Star, ST Microelectronics, Micronas, NXP, Trident Microsystems, Inc., Adobe, Conexant Systems, Inc., Global Graphics and Marvell Semiconductor, Inc.