Tundra Semiconductor

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Tundra Semiconductor Corp.
Type Public
TSX: TUN
Founded Ottawa, Ontario (1983)
Headquarters Ottawa, Ontario
Key people Adam Chowaniec,Chairman Daniel Hoste,CEO
David Long,CFO
Industry System Interconnect
Products RapidIO system interconnect, PCI/PCI-X/PCI Express Bridges, HyperTransport bridges,VME bridges, Host bridges for PowerPC, Power Controllers
Employees 300 (Q3 2006)
Website www.tundra.com

Tundra Semiconductor Corporation (TSX: TUN) supplies communications, computing and storage companies with system interconnect products, intellectual property and design services backed by customer service and technical support. Tundra’s products includes bridges and switches enabling industry standards: RapidIO, PCI, PCI-X, PCI Express, PowerPC, VME, HyperTransport, Interlaken and SPI-4.2. Tundra’s products include board design and layout, with specific focus on system level signal integrity. Tundra's design services division, Silicon Logic Engineering, offers ASIC and FPGA design services, semiconductor intellectual property and product development consulting.

Tundra headquarters are located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It has design centers in North America: Ottawa, Eau Claire, Wisconsin; South Portland, Maine and in Hyderabad, India. Tundra sales offices are located in Europe, and throughout North America and Asia Pacific. Tundra has established a worldwide sales and customer support network offering direct sales and distribution through representatives and regional distributors.

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[edit] Tundra Semiconductor

In September 2003 Tundra bought the MPC1xx family northbridge controllers for PowerPC G3 and PowerPC G4 systems from Motorola, and they have kept on developing them since now under the name Tsi1xx.

In 2004, Tundra joined with IBM and others to form Power.org, an organization devoted to drive development and adaptation of Power Architecture technology.

[edit] History of Tundra

Though Tundra was incorporated as an entity in 1995 its history goes back to 1983 as Calmos Semiconductor, which was subsequently acquired in 1989 by Newbridge Networks Corporation, where it became known as Newbridge Microsystems and in 1995 was spun out as Tundra Semiconductor.

[edit] Calmos

Former MicroSystems International and Mosaid employee John Roberts founded Calmos [1] in April 1983. The company was initially run out of his home in Kanata and moved to a facility on Edgewater Road in Kanata once the company had raised funding of $800,000.

The company originally planned to design and produce gate array integrated circuits, or chips, to Canadian and U.S. customers. Unfortunately early on design work of this sort dried up and forced the company to focus on developing application-specific circuits. These application-specific circuits would later be incorporated into a larger circuits for other applications. It ended up being a profitable niche that saw the company through the early 1980’s memory market slump.

By October of 1985, Calmos had raised additional funds bringing the total to $1.4 Million, had grown to 15 employees and had yearly revenue of $1.5 Million. In order to increase sales and grow the business John Roberts looked for a CEO with experience in the U.S. Semiconductor market. He found this in the person ofAdam Chowaniec who had left Commodore International's Semiconductor division. Adam Chowaniec became President while John Roberts became Executive VP of R&D.[2]

In February of 1988 the company acquired the integrated circuite division of Siltronics for $500,000. The purchase brought with it revenue of $2 to $3 million and all of the inventory, machinery, customer lists and unfilled orders for Siltronics's bipolar integrated circuit product line. Calmos also hired 24 of the existing Siltonics staff including founder and vice-president Gyles Panther, doubling the size of Calmos's workforce. [3] Later that year Federal Industry Minister Michel Cote announced that Calmos had won a $3.07 million Canadian Federal grant to work with European Silicon Structures of Bracknell, England for joint development of Applications Specific Integrated Circuits (ASIC.)[4] At about this time the company grew to include an assembly plant located in Nepean, on Stafford Road.[5]

In March of 1989 Calmos acquired UltraMac Conversions which designed and manufactured peripherals for Apple's Macintosh computers, which subsequently operated under the name Calmos Data, the group was headed by the former president Lincoln Henthorn. [6] By May Calmos Microsystems had grown to 55 employees, was profitable and had sales of over $4.5 million. Newbridge Networks, a Calmos customer and founded by Welsh entrepreneur Terry Matthews, who had also attended university with founder John Roberts, acquired the company. Newbridge was private at the time and subsequently went public that June, financial terms were not disclosed at the time. [7] However, in a 1997 Ottawa Citizen interview John Roberts stated that Calmos was purchased for $5 million in Newbridge Pre-IPO shares that subsequently became worth "about $100 Million." [8]

[edit] Newbridge Microsystems

Newbridge Networks primarily acquired Calmos Microsystems for its single chip high-speed public key data encryption system, which became a selling point for Newbridge Networks systems to the U.S. federal government. The rest of the original Calmos Product line though revenue generating and profitable was not a major reason for the acquisiton, these products continued to be sources of revenue well after the division was spun out as Tundra, most notably this include the 8085 variant which was sold as late as 1999.[9]

In early 1990, Newbridge Microsystems licenced DY4 VME Interface Chip Set. This became the beginning of the companies involvement in system interconnect development that Tundra was later to become a leader in. At about this time Calmos Founder John Roberts left the company to become C.E.O. of the Strategic Microelectronics Consortium[10] and later founded another startup SiGe Semiconductor. [11]

In 1994 Newbridge Microsystems also developed the SPRITE T1, the first T1 Wide Area Network access card for a Sun Microsystems Computer Co. Netra Internet Server. SPRITE T1 was an SBus card that enabled full T1 WAN service directly in to a Sun Netra Internet Server.[12] By early 1995 Newbridge Microsystems had announced a strategic relationship with Motorola Inc. for the development of a PCI to 68K bridge product family.[13] This was to be the beginning of a long partnersip between Newbridge Microsystems (Tundra) and Motorola which continues today with Tundra’s PowerPC system products.

In December of 1995, Newbridge Networks decided that since the majority of their Microsystems divisions sales were for activities not related to the parent they would spin the company out and maintain a large financial interest. Thus Newbridge Microsystems assets were sold into a new Corporate entity known as Tundra Semiconductor. It is from this date that Tundra states that they were founded [14] and the management team that was in place later defined themselves as 'founders' of the new entity.

[edit] Tundra Semiconductor: Newbridge Affiliate

At the time of the Tundra spin out the company raised $10 Million (CDN) [15] in third-party investment from Venture Capital Funds and Mutual funds,[16] Terry Matthews also made a personal investment and Newbridge retained a 38% ownership in the new entity[17] meaning Tundra Semiconductor became a member of the Newbridge affiliate program.[18]

A benefit of the spin out from direct Newbridge Networks ownership was that Tundra was now free to sell to Newbridge competitors. Newbridge founder Terry Matthews, who was also Tundra's chairman of the board, encouraged the departure. "We're maximizing the company's position," he said at the time. "There's no doubt that by opening up and appealing to a worldwide market, it was justified." [19] The company held its first AGM on October 20 where Adam Chowaniac stated the company would probably go public in 12-18 months. [20]

In 1997, Canadian Industry Minister John Manley announced that Tundra Semiconductor would receive a $400,000 loan for R&D use. [21] Chowaniec stated to a Rideau Club luncheon that Tundra had $11 million in revenue in 1996 and expected to generate $20 million or $21 million in revenue achieve profitability in 1997 and hoped to increase sales revenues by another 50 per cent in 1998. He also made reference to the fact that the company was having difficulty in recruiting the talent it needed to move the company forward with about 20 positions for engineers that were unfilled. [22] The company employee count during this period grew from 50 to 70. [23]

Tundras hopes to go public in 1998 were dashed by the Asian financial crisis that also affected the stock markets. Tundra will wait "until spring, (when) markets settle," Adam Chowaniec was quoted saying at the companies AGM. [24]Although this complicated their future growth plans, Tundra continued to grow from its profits and through the continued support of its private investors. [25] Part of this continued growth was the opening of a Mountain View office for sales and customer support.[26]

Tundra's IPO was not delayed as long as feared. With the quick rebound of the stock markets in late 1998, Tundra Filed its Prospectus and announced intentions to raise $25 - $50 million. [27]

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Tech refugees' hatch a multimillion-dollar baby", The Ottawa Citizen, August 5, 2005 Page: E1
  2. ^ "Calmos head steps aside for imported replacement", The Ottawa Citizen, October 10, 1985, Page: E13
  3. ^ "Calmos takes over profitable product line from defunct Siltronics", The Ottawa Citizen, February 9, 1988. Page: B1
  4. ^ "Calmos to hire 135 workers with $3-M research grant", The Ottawa Citizen, March 11, 1987. Page: C7
  5. ^ "Local high-technology companies", The Ottawa Citizen, March 7 1989 ,Page: G12
  6. ^ "Calmos buys UltraMac", The Ottawa Citizen, March 14, 1989, Pg. C3
  7. ^ "Newbridge buys Calmos", The Ottawa Citizen, May 27, 1989. Page: F7
  8. ^ "Creating companies `acts of madness': New company just the latest high-tech achievement for John Roberts," The Ottawa Citizen, October 7, 1997 Page: E38
  9. ^ http://www.tundra.com/products.aspx?id=1346
  10. ^ "BUSINESS IN BRIEF," The Ottawa Citizen, February 10, 1990, Page: E1
  11. ^ "Creating companies `acts of madness': New company just the latest high-tech achievement for John Roberts," The Ottawa Citizen, October 7, 1997 Page: E38
  12. ^ The Ottawa Citizen, December 14, 1994, Page: F3
  13. ^ "BRIEFLY," The Ottawa Citizen, January 13, 1995, Page: F6
  14. ^ http://www.tundra.com/corporate.aspx?bid=820&id=430
  15. ^ A built-in market: Kanata-based Tundra finds a semiconductor niche,The Ottawa Citizen, October 21, 1996, Page: A10
  16. ^ MUTUAL FUNDS: Local fund shines in dismal June for investors, The Ottawa Citizen, July 16, 1996,Page: C3
  17. ^ A built-in market: Kanata-based Tundra finds a semiconductor niche,The Ottawa Citizen, October 21, 1996, Page: A10
  18. ^ http://www.parl.gc.ca/35/Archives/committees352/indu/evidence/28_96-10-31/indu28_blk101.html
  19. ^ "Chip growth to top 17% in 1998," The Ottawa Citizen, December 15, 1997, Page: C1
  20. ^ A built-in market: Kanata-based Tundra finds a semiconductor niche,The Ottawa Citizen, October 21, 1996, Page: A10
  21. ^ Business, The Ottawa Citizen, April 15, 1997, Page: C3
  22. ^ Firms resort to bonuses to grab scarce talent, The Ottawa Citizen, May 31, 1997, Page: H1
  23. ^ Business acumen lends company vision: Tundra makes its presence felt in semiconductor industry, The Ottawa Citizen, October 8, 1997, Page: E17.
  24. ^ Tundra postpones decision to go public, The Ottawa Citizen, October 16, 1998, Page: E5
  25. ^ Tundra postpones decision to go public , The Ottawa Citizen, October 16, 1998, Page: E5
  26. ^ Business, The Ottawa Citizen, November 10, 1998 Page: E3
  27. ^ Buoyant market looks right for Tundra to go public: Newbridge affiliate will use IPO to raise cash for research and development, Ottawa Citizen, December 12, 1998, Page: H1 / FRONT
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