Uncertainty clouds Telegent's future

LONDON – Fabless chip company Telegent Systems Inc., a vendor of TV receiver chips for cell phones and other mobile devices with engineering resources in China, has closed according to Chinese reports which EE Times has seen in Google translation.

The company's website and phone number at the headquarters in Sunnyvale, California, continue to work, but neither Telegent executives nor some of its venture capital investors had responded to requests for call backs by the time this article was posted.

Diana Jovin, former vice president of corporate marketing and business development at Telegent, left the company in June to join Spreadtrum Communications Inc. (Shanghai, China) as vice president of corporate strategy and investor relations.

Telegent had focused on analog television chips for inclusion in mobile devices but had begun to pursue a hybrid strategy seeking to support both analog reception and digital TV standards.

Telegent pulled a planned initial public offering of shares in May 2010 and subsequently appointed Ford Tamer as CEO replacing co-founder Samuel Sheng.

Despite a rapidly changing market for its chips Telegent was able to boast that it had shipped its 100 millionth mobile TV receiver in November 2010.

At the time that Telegent pulled its IPO Jovin acknowledged the withdrawal was an unusual step but said the company had ended its most recent fiscal year with $150 million in cash and in a strong revenue position.

Telegent's investors include Index Ventures, New Enterprise Associates, Northern Light Venture Capital, Walden International, Stanford University and the University of California at Berkeley.


Related links and articles:

Telegent hits 100 million TV chips shipped

Update: Ex-Broadcom VP named CEO of Telegent

Mobile TV chip vendor Telegent withdraws IPO

China chips: Bomb, or just a lot of firecrackers?

Will analog (not digital) mobile TV dominate in China?