Virata Corporation

About Virata Corporation

Virata Corporation was a fabless semiconductor and communications-software company whose roots trace to June 1993, when Dr. Hermann Hauser and Professor Andy Hopper founded Advanced Telecommunication Modules Ltd (ATML) in Cambridge, England, as a spin-off from Olivetti Research Laboratory. Originally focused on Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networking hardware for the "ATM to the desktop" market, the company pivoted in 1997 amid slow commercial uptake, refocusing instead on licensing semiconductor intellectual property and embedded software; it was renamed Virata Limited in February 1998. Reincorporated in Delaware in August 1999 and relocated to Santa Clara, California, Virata completed a NASDAQ IPO that November, raising $81 million and quickly becoming one of Cambridge's first billion-dollar technology successes — a landmark of the "Cambridge Phenomenon" high-tech cluster known as Silicon Fen. Virata's core products, including its Helium and Argon processor families and Integrated Software on Silicon (ISOS), served as host processors and embedded operating systems for DSL modems, routers, and home gateways, powering much of the world's early broadband internet access equipment. Facing a telecom-sector downturn and industry consolidation, Virata merged with New Jersey-based Globespan in December 2001 to form GlobespanVirata, a DSL semiconductor market leader; that combined company was in turn absorbed into Conexant Systems in November 2003, ending Virata's run as an independent company.