History
A brief history of CSR
In 1999 CSR was founded by nine colleagues from Cambridge Consultants, James Collier, Phil O’Donovan, Glenn Collinson, Jonathan Kimmitt, Carl Orsborn, Ian Sabberton, Justin Penfold, Robert Young and Graham Pink. CSR was formed to develop what was, at the time, thought impossible; single-chip Bluetooth® wireless silicon.
Little over a decade later, CSR is now regarded as one of the foremost providers of wireless innovation in the world. With a global team of more than 1.400 employees and a longstanding Bluetooth market leadership position, CSR has gone on to evolve its unrivalled expertise in a selection of complementary short-range wireless technologies, including, Bluetooth, FM, GPS, NFC and Wi-Fi. CSR is widely regarded as one of the foremost providers of wireless innovation in the world.
CSR’s headquarters form part of the technological innovation and business expertise of the Cambridge Science Park in the Silicon Fen.
Detailed History
CSR was founded in 1999 from expertise within Cambridge Consultants. The original engineering team had worked together for many years developing radio, computing and software systems which were produced in high volume and at low cost. By using this experience and identifying technological and market opportunities within short-range wireless, the founders began to develop single-chip Bluetooth solutions.
From our beginnings CSR has originated and led development in single-chip Bluetooth solutions. CSR immediately had a clear innovative advantage: the key technology breakthrough was to pioneer a silicon chip with an integral radio transmitter, microprocessor and baseband. At the time competitors were producing their solutions on two or even three chips, and a single chip solution was considered to be impossible. The founders of CSR, however, found a method of frequency co-ordination that allowed a radio receiver to communicate through a silicon chip’s digital traffic.
This innovative and commercial opportunity was recognised by investors, such as 3i, Sony and Intel, and in the three years before an IPO was made, CSR raised $84 million in funding. In March 2004 CSR floated on the London Stock Exchange at a price of 200p, in an IPO that was significantly oversubscribed.
Product Strategy
CSR’s technological innovation has always been accompanied by an equally rigorous focus on product and business strategy.
CSR is a fabless semiconductor company, which means that production of our chips is outsourced to an external manufacturer. CSR uses TSMC in Taiwan. TSMC is the world’s largest manufacturer of semiconductor products and we work very closely with them to ensure a high level of quality. This also enables us both to benefit from product solving skills.
BlueCore Development
CSR’s single-chip Bluetooth was a market-first. Technological expertise and excellent relationships with TSMC and our customers has enabled the development of the BlueCore range. The core innovation comes from making our chips smaller and cheaper without sacrificing functionality or performance. The latest versions of our chips are smaller than ever before yet offer greater functionality.
The BlueCore range is diverse and includes different architectures such as Flash, multimedia and ROM to accommodate the many different end products now available with Bluetooth functionality. BlueCore5-FM, for example, was the world’s first combination chip featuring Bluetooth and FM radios. CSR’s strategy has been to increase the software content in products and to extend expertise in Bluetooth technologies. CSR’s innovation basically has been to offer lower cost, higher performance, greater functionality coexisting interoperable solutions.
CSR's leading position in the Bluetooth business has been won by a unique approach to IC design based on extremely high levels of integration, providing compelling performance and cost advantages to OEMs. This ethos has been carried through to CSR's UniFi IEEE 802.11 applications, a product range with an IC architecture that integrates a new level of functionality embracing all three major variants of the protocol (802.11a, b and g), and IC choices that offer solutions for both current applications, and emerging embedded applications in portable consumer electronics devices (including mobile phones) and home appliances.
Business Strategy
Since 2005 CSR has undertaken a number of strategic acquisitions to help evolve the company’s expertise in order to strengthen, grow and diversify the business.
It started with the acquisition of echo and noise suppression software company Clarity Technologies Inc, which allowed CSR to increase the superiority of its audio solutions at a time of continuing consolidation in the industry. This was closely followed by the acquisition of UbiNetics which strengthened CSR’s software team and helped accelerate the company’s software developments in Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.
The combined acquisition of NordNav and Cambridge Positioning Systems Technologies AB in January 2007 built the foundations of CSR’s now industry leading GPS capabilities, and allowed CSR to provide software-based GPS suitable for mass-market mobile phones and PNDs. This GPS strength was given a further boost in June 2009 when CSR merged with SiRF Technology Holdings Inc, enabling CSR to augment its products with well respected and widely adopted GPS technologies to create the next generation of connectivity and location enabled products. SiRF brought a market leading IP portfolio in GPS and assisted GPS (A-GPS), dead reckoning and location centric platforms.
In 2010 CSR made low latency audio compression CODEC company APT Licensing Ltd its sixth acquisition. This move has allowed CSR to substantially strengthen its offering in the real-time streaming audio market for mobile and wireless consumer applications and is helping to support CSR’s expansion into broader audio markets.
The merger with global leader Zoran Corporation in 2011 reinforced CSR’s offering to customers, providing video and imaging technology solutions for cameras, set top boxes, digital and silicon tuners, printing and document imaging. CSR offers customers industry leading image capture and display technologies combined with comprehensive software solutions, bringing new dimensions to mobile, consumer and automotive applications.
CSR Today
CSR has expertise in a range of complementary short-range wireless technologies, including audio, FM, GPS, and Wi-Fi. CSR is committed to the design and supply of complete technology solutions that deliver ground-breaking functionality, performance, quality and value to our global customers. These technology solutions enable CSR's customers to better differentiate their products and create desirable new features and functionality that consumers 'must have' in their electronics devices. Using these solutions, the opportunity to integrate CSR technology has become almost endless.
Investment in R&D has been vital and the profile of CSR’s employees reflects this: over 70% have technical qualifications and over 60% work in R&D. These strategies have been applied throughout the generations of BlueCore and all our brands, and CSR now has products which are not only a few millimeters square but pack an incredible amount of technology in a tiny space.
Impact on Society
CSR technology has a beneficial impact on all levels of society. CSR has always understood the key virtues of wireless technology; making us better connected, bringing people together through sight and sound, opening up channels of communication and helping people to find out where they are and where they are going.
CSR’s constant drive towards lowering prices while at the same time increasing technology integration has been one of the key factors driving wireless connectivity into the developing world. CSR’s cost-efficient silicon has helped to spread the benefits of wireless connectivity to whole new regions and sectors of society, with attendant personal, social and economic benefits.
Both as a company and in terms of individual staff efforts CSR engages in a number of charitable sponsorship activities worldwide. CSR’s staff has proven themselves to be excellent givers and it encourages and supports those staff who wish to undertake charitable activities.
All worldwide charitable activities are co-ordinated from Cambridge. At the same time, CSR is careful to localise all activities and comply with local laws, customs and practices.
Impact on Environment
CSR’s products are manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan and this is the focus of our environmental policy. Our offices operate responsibly towards the safety of our staff and undertake practices to conserve environmental resources. TSMC is listed on Dow Jones’ Sustainability Index, and we’ve worked to reduce and eliminate the use of lead and arsenic in our product process.
Relations with Suppliers, Partners and Contractors
CSR works closely with its suppliers and a part of this relationship is a periodic environmental audit, (also encompassing social and ethical elements).
We also operate partner programmes. These allow us to offer our customers added value applications whilst our partners have access to CSR’s extensive expertise and successful wireless technology solutions. Both parties share knowledge, experience and resources.
Relations with Employees
CSR employs over 3,000 people worldwide and its strong staff is the lifeblood of the company, and the key factor in CSR’s success, past and future.
In recognising the importance of its staff CSR manages a very low staff turnover rate. CSR also offers its staff access to in-house and external training, an annual bonus scheme and stock options. The excellent benefits package includes flexible working hours, generous holiday allowances, higher-than-average maternity pay, an excellent pension scheme, and more.
CSR employs the best people, and wants to continue to do so, and so treats its staff well, offering employees the working environment, respect and opportunities they deserve.
Relations with Customers
CSR is more than just a supplier. We work in partnership with our customers. The company goes further than just supplying chips, we create system solutions. Firstly, vital software support and integrated components reduce effort and cost for customers. Secondly, we produce application-specific solutions. This makes using CSR’s products fast and easy. So by tailoring packages this is what we to and do achieve.
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