Amir Panush, CEO of Ceva
What’s at stake:
Ceva CEO Amir Panush has his work cut out for him. The DSP powerhouse’s growth was built on the industry’s standards-based high-quality IP. Now, Panush has to chart a new course as a pure-play IP company in a rough-and-tumble ‘Smart Edge’ market that’s still emerging and very fragmented. The odds are getting tougher.
Decades ago, Ceva took the cellular communication market by storm by licensing its DSP cores to clients who needed to design baseband processors for mobile phones and base stations.
The Israeli company thus emerged as a DSP powerhouse, as the worldwide demand for cellular phones kept soaring.
Ceva’s next step, in the mid-2000’s, however, had an even bigger impact. It struck gold in 2014 by acquiring RivieraWaves, a private company based in France. The French company provided wireless connectivity IP for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth technologies – which do not depend on Ceva’s DSP. This acquisition became a new growth engine for the Israeli company.