Former Broadcom Corp. executive Yossi Cohen, who last month stepped down as head of the chipmaker’s mobile group to run another company, got a raucous send-off party at Dave & Buster’s in the Irvine Spectrum Center.
Broadcom Chief Executive Scott McGregor and Henry Samueli, cofounder and chief technology officer, made an appearance to say goodbye to Cohen, who had spent a decade at Broadcom in a variety of posts.
“There was a nice dinner, and both Scott and Henry said nice things about me,” Cohen said. “Hundreds of people came.”
But it turns out it’s not much of a going away for Cohen, who’s now chief executive at chip startup Symwave Inc. He plans to move the company’s headquarters from San Diego to Orange County next month.
“The intent is to keep a small office in San Diego and move over to Orange County,” Cohen said, “Executive management will be in OC and that’s where we’ll do a lot of development and bring our customers to see us.”
Other plans include hiring 40 workers, recruiting a few sales and marketing executives and building a lab to test designs, he said.
Cohen, 43, lives in Laguna Niguel,a big reason for the move.
Other Symwave executives could move here as well.
“Over the last 10 years OC has changed a lot,it’s a much bigger and better place for a high-tech company,” he said. “Companies like Broadcom have helped grow the high-tech sector in Orange County as well.”
He used the success of local spinoffs QLogic Corp. and Conexant Systems Inc. as examples. Aliso Viejo-based QLogic spun off from Costa Mesa’s Emulex Corp. in the early 1990s. Newport Beach’s Conexant Systems was part of Rockwell International Corp.’s chip development arm until 1999.
“There are a lot of satellite companies that find success here,small companies that come out of larger, more successful ones,” Cohen said.
Spinoff of a Spinoff
Symwave, which was started in 2001, is in some ways a spinoff of a spinoff.
Its founders, a handful of engineers and executives, all hail from Conexant. Ron Chaffee, Symwave’s former chief executive, is staying on as chief operating officer.
The company makes what industry insiders call mixed-signal chips.
They process both digital and analog signals on a single chip.
The company has four major product lines, two of which are in production.
Its biggest line of business is chips that run fingerprint sensors, which are embedded in computers, keyboards, cell phones and other secure storage devices. The company has nearly a dozen patents for the fingerprint sensing chips.
Another chip it makes is for FireWire, a cord that plugs into a device, such as a camcorder, to transfer data quickly to a computer.
Symwave also makes controller chips that work with the FireWire cables.
A fourth product that’s set to be launched this year allows live television to be viewed on PCs without additional connecting devices.
“It would enable you to connect a TV tuner to our chip, and the computer’s processor does all of the thinking to bring the TV functionality to the PC,” Cohen said.
Symwave, which doesn’t disclose sales, expects to turn a profit in the next year or so.
Cohen has been looking to set up in South OC,in Aliso Viejo or Mission Viejo,because some workers will commute from San Diego, he said.
The company also has an office in Shenzhen, China, where some 80 engineers are based. The company contracts with Asian manufacturers to make its chips.
The startup has raised $19 million in venture funding and is set to go after another round later this year, Cohen said. It’s one of the things that attracted him to the company, he said.
China a Lure
Another biggie: Symwave’s operations in China.
“I’m a big believer in the economic growth of China and the potential to leverage business success there,” he said. “Having a company that has an established team that’s been there for several years seemed like a winning combination.”
Symwave could be headed for an initial public offering down the road, Cohen said.
“Some of the strategic decisions we need to make are more likely to put us on a path for an IPO kind of company,” he said. “My personal view is that is more likely the scenario.”
Meanwhile, Cohen is cultivating a bit of an entrepreneurial streak.
“The desire to go and grow something and take a small business and make it very successful is what I enjoy the most. It’s what I’ve done before Broadcom, for a large part of my career,” he said. “I also wanted to try a hand at managing my own shop.”
Cohen, who grew up in Israel, did a lot of work building up small niche businesses at Broadcom, including its business designing chips for cell phones.
Under Cohen’s watch, the mobile group landed two of the top five cell phone makers as customers and tripled the number of engineers in its mobile group.
“I would say that most of what I did at Broadcom has always been starting a new business from nothing or taking something small and making it big,” he said. “What I left behind in the cell phone business is a very strong team.”
The split with Broadcom was amicable, Cohen said.
“My time at Broadcom was exceptionally enjoyable and professionally rewarding,” he said.
McGregor has stepped in temporarily while the company is looking to fill the post.
Cohen volunteered to help aid in the search.
“Ten years at Broadcom is a long time,” he said. “The exit was done in a cordial and friendly way.”
