Horizon Semiconductors

Horizon Semiconductors is a provider of integrated silicon solutions that enable the secured delivery of voice, video, data and multimedia to and throughout the home, the office and the mobile environment, serving the Consumer Electronics, Broadcast, Broadband Communication and home entertainment markets. Horizon provides System-On-a-Chip and software solutions to manufacturers of set-top box equipment, professional encoding & transcoding equipment, digital entertainment and broadband access products.

Technology

Using proprietary technologies and design methodologies, Horizon designs, develops & supplies complete System-on-a-Chip (SoC) solutions and related hardware & software applications. Horizon’s product portfolio includes solutions for digital cable, satellite and IPTV set-top box (STB), Digital Television (DTV), Blu-Ray player and recorder, Digital Video Recorder (DVR), Home Media Centers as well as professional encoders and transcoders addressing the broadcast market.

Horizon’s IP portfolio which includes coding techniques, proprietary algorithms and VLSI architectures have enabled the company to develop a diverse product portfolio, supporting leading compression standards and a wide range of advanced technologies. Horizon’s SoC families offer single and dual channel HD decoders as well as transcoding & encoding solutions, all operating in real-time and at resolutions up to 1080/60p (1920x1080, 60 frames/sec).

Horizon's SoCs are designed with the highest level of integration, embedding a variety of leading edge technologies including support for compression standards such as: H.264 (AVC), VC-1 (SMPTE 421M), MPEG-4 and MPEG-2, superior display processing, high definition 2D/3D graphics acceleration, multi-channel multi-format audio processing, application CPU, multi-stream high bandwidth transport processing, adaptive noise reduction pre-processing, and a wide variety of advanced connectivity and peripherals. All of Horizon’s SoCs are designed in accordance with world-leading secure processor architectures, enabling complete content protection in compliance with numerous Conditional access and Digital Rights Management schemes.

Horizon has developed and continues to build on the following technology foundations:

Proprietary communications systems algorithms and protocols
Advanced DSP hardware architectures
System-on-a-chip design methodologies development for both standard cell and full-custom integrated circuit design
Proprietary Simulations & Verification tools
High-performance radio frequency, analog and mixed-signal circuit design using industry-standard CMOS processes
High-performance custom microprocessor architectures and circuit designs
Extensive software reference platforms to enable complete system-level solutions

Products

Horizon’s product portfolio includes:

Single-chip cable, satellite or IPTV advanced set top box supporting analog front-end, dual channel HD playback, 2D and 3D graphics, advanced display processing and video format conversion for uploading media content to portable players and cell phones.
Single-chip Blu-Ray player and recorder providing highest levels of visual experience for consumers.
Professional stand-alone 1080/60p transcoder and encoder ICs.
A variety of application specific SoC products.

Horizon also offers reference design kits. These fully operational development systems include PCB schematics, full software design kit and documentation. Of special interest is the HzR4010, the industry’s smallest form-factor, stand-alone high definition multi-standard transcoder reference platform.

Manufacturing

Horizon manufactures products using standard CMOS process techniques. The standard nature of these processes permits the company to engage independent silicon foundries to fabricate Horizon’s integrated circuits.

Horizon products are currently fabricated with 90 nanometer & 65 nanometer, six, seven & eight layer metal structures.

Horizon's silicon foundry is Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation in Taiwan. Horizon's assembly and testing is conducted by several subcontractors around the world.

History

Horizon was founded in 2003 by Amir Morad, Ms.C. and Leonid Yavits, Ms.C.

List of integrated circuit manufacturers