Rothschild invests $5.9 million in Chipidea

LONDON — R Capital Technologies, a venture capital fund managed by Rothschild Gestion, has invested about 5 million euro (about $5.9 million) in Chipidea Microelectronica SA (Lisbon, Portugal), a provider of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor circuits in the form of intellectual property.

Chipidea’s portfolio ranges from single-function blocks to full analog sub-systems for communications, multimedia and power management applications. Founded in 1997, Chipidea now employs over 200 people based in Europe, Asia and North America.

In addition to developing its IP business, Chipidea has been working on the launch of semiconductor products under a fabless chip company business model.

According to research firm Portelligent Inc. Chipidea has a custom ASIC within Microsoft’s Xbox 360 that performs a key interface function (see Nov. 23 story).

“With such an outstanding blue chip customer base that strongly drives Chipidea’s development in analog, Chipidea is in the path of rapid growth and success,” said Jean-Michel Beghin, Partner of R Capital Technologies, in a statement issued by Chipidea.