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Description: SigmaTel Inc. is an electronics company. It specializes in audio processor and controller chip manufacture, for use with peripherals. Founded in 1993, its headquarters is located in Austin, Texas. As of early 2008, William P. Osborne acted as the Chairman, Phillip E. Pompa was the CEO and President, while Stephan L. Beatty was the Senior Vice President for the Product Lines and Integrated Components.

SigmaTel Inc. was a company known for producing analog and digital mixed ICs, which it designed and marketed. It used semiconductors for its audio processors and controller chips. Other fabrication facilities did the fabrication of the semiconductors needed for their chips. Hence the term ‘fabless,’ an adjective coined to describe the company.

The products of SigmaTel Inc. were used in various digital products, mostly in digital multimedia, computing and consumer electronics markets. PMPs (Portable Multimedia Players) were the largest part of SigmaTel’s revenue. These include Set-top boxes, Digital televisions, Video cameras, Notebooks and MP3 players.

SigmaTel Inc. also provided system-level solutions. It did this through software support, application support, software development tools, customizable software, customizable firmware and reference designs. SigmaTel Inc.’s focus on small, cost effective, power-efficient and lightweight electronic audio products and its supporting software paved the way for its chips and software being used in over a hundred million portable audio players in 2002 until 2006.

This SigmaTel chip (STMP35xx) needed no battery charger, Digital to Analog Converter, Analog to Digital Converter, amplifier, external RAM, headphone capacitor or voltage converter. The quality of the audio produced by this SigmaTel product was rated as the industry’s best. During this time, SigmaTel Inc. landed a deal with Apple Inc.

This led to SigmaTel’s chips being used in the iPod Shuffle when it was introduced. Some brands that also used the SigmaTel software and SOC (System On a Chip) are Philips, Creative MuVo, and Dell Ditty. Their largest competitor was PortalPlayer.

SigmaTel Inc. also released a line of audio chips for use with audio playback devices, laptops and desktops. These codec chips were used in desktops and laptops from Dell and notebooks for Sony Vaio.

Integrated Device Technology, Inc. purchased SigmaTel Inc.’s PC audio business on July 25, 2006 for eighty million dollars. After the acquisition, SigmaTel Inc. stopped receiving revenue from the sales of the audio chips.

SigmaTel Inc. was purchased by Freescale Semiconductor Inc. Freescale Semiconductor Inc. announced its intentions on February 4, 2008, and completed the acquisition on May 5, 2008.

SigmaTel Inc. was taken off the NASDAQ list afterwards. At present, it is a subsidiary of Freescale Semiconductors Inc.

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