Created in the 1980s, Dolphin Design split in two after the purchase of its activities. The Isère-based company specializes in the sale of design diagrams to manufacturers of integrated circuits (also called blocks or IP platforms) as well as in the design of complete integrated circuits (ASICs) produced on demand for strategic sectors such as aeronautics. or defense.
«Even though the two activities were in the same company, they were very differentconfides to L'Usine Nouvelle Laurent Monge, director of Dolphin Semiconductor, one of the new entities, formalized on November 5, 2024. The separation happened quite simply.“. Owner of the company since 2018, the semiconductor materials manufacturer Soitec is parting ways with it today for reasons of reshuffling its strategic portfolio.
Adapting to a new typology of customers
It is the French deeptech investment fund Jolt Capital which is taking over the IP block or platform activity which will be called Dolphin Semiconductor. The latter currently represents 60% of the company's turnover (60 million euros announced for 2024). “We do engineering: What we deliver to our customers are blocks of intellectual property that will allow them to produce themselves or have them produced», specifies Laurent Monge. The ASIC activity is taken over by the company NanoXplore, based in Sèvres (Hauts-de-Seine). The latter is presented as the European leader in the design and development of FPGA SoC technology. It will take over a small part of the 125 employees to open its first R&D office in Meylan (Isère), in the same premises as the new company Dolphin Semiconductor.
In recent years, Dolphin Design's clients have moved from SMEs to large groups. “There has been a change in the typology of customers. Major semiconductor contractors like STMicroelectronics, Infineon, Analog Device who tended to do everything themselves are increasingly interested in working with usrelate Laurent Monge. The large semiconductor companies will design less and less all of the integrated circuits themselves. Purchasing pre-qualified equipment, which has already proven itself, will allow them to focus on what differentiates them and thus accelerate the marketing of their products.»
Strengthening sales and R&D teams
Jolt Capital has already announced an investment of 26 million euros to support the growth of the new entity Dolphin Semiconductor. It is already considering the acquisition of other companies to complement its IP portfolio and reach customers in geographic areas where it is still poorly established. “There are always areas where we can strengthen ourselves. We have strong development potential in North America and Asia where the market is larger», analyse Laurent Monge.
The investment will primarily be used to strengthen the sales and R&D teams to be “willing to interact with large groups“. Dolphin Semiconductor, based in Meylan (Isère) and Montreal (Quebec), already has 135 employees, with more than 80% engineering profiles. She hopes to recruit around twenty people in 2025 for these two sites, “70% R&D and 30% sales and marketing», Announces Laurent Monge.
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