PortalPlayer

PortalPlayer, Inc.
IndustrySemiconductors
Founded1999; 25 years ago (1999)
Defunct2007
FateAcquired by Nvidia
Headquarters
United States Edit this on Wikidata
Area served
Worldwide
ProductsSoCs

PortalPlayer, Inc., founded in 1999, was a fabless semiconductor company that supplied system-on-a-chip semiconductors, firmware and software for personal media players. The company handled semiconductor design and firmware development, while subcontracting the actual semiconductor manufacturing to merchant foundries.

It gained recognition as the company with which Apple contracted for development of the original iPod.[1][2] The company went public with an IPO in November 2004 and traded on the NASDAQ under ticker symbol PLAY.[3] Sales to Apple grew to 90% of the company's gross revenue, which ultimately hurt the company when Apple switched media processor chip vendors in its iPod lines.[4]

On January 5, 2007, Nvidia Corporation announced that it had acquired PortalPlayer, Inc. for about $357 million.[5][6]

  1. ^ Inside Look at Birth of the IPod, by Leander Kahney, wired.com, 07/21/2004
  2. ^ Inside the Apple iPod Design Triumph Archived 2010-10-04 at the Library of Congress Web Archives, by Erik Sherman, Electronics Design Chain magazine, Summer 2002 issue
  3. ^ PortalPlayer IPO plays Friday, by Steve Gelsi, CBS.MarketWatch.com, 11/19/2004
  4. ^ PortalPlayer dealt setback at Apple, by Mark LaPedus, EE Times, 4/19/2006
  5. ^ "Nvidia acquires PortalPlayer (Press release)". Nvidia. January 5, 2007. Archived from the original on 2007-09-29. Retrieved 2020-12-09.
  6. ^ "Nvidia to Acquire IPod Chip Maker PortalPlayer Inc". Wall Street Journal. November 7, 2006.