Opportunistic expansion carries Samplify in two directions

Samplify Systems is an algorithm developer that has become, in successive mutations, an IP provider and a fabless semiconductor company, all in pursuit of markets for its uniquely efficient almost-lossless compression algorithm. Now the company is following its star even farther, plotting to play a major role in two new markets: LTE base stations and portable ultrasound systems.

The former move relies on a specific retuning of Samplify’s existing compression algorithm to fit a new opportunity. That opening, according to Samplify vice president of marketing Allan Evans, is the rush to LTE. The new air interface means more signals coming from more antennas at the top of each cell phone tower, and altogether about six times more traffic over the CPRI (Common Public Radio Interface) link between antenna electronics at the top of the tower and the base station electronics at the bottom. This traffic is composed of streams of digital quadrature data, with patterns specific to each particular air interface. And it has proved receptive to Samplify’s compression approach.

The company has come up with a new product, Prism IQ, specifically for these data streams. Evans says Prism IQ can achieve at least 2:1 compression ratios across a variety of air interfaces, from LTE to GSM, while increasing the error vector magnitude on the other side of the baseband processor by no more than 1 percent.

Samplify intends to deliver Prism IQ as a chip set in cooperation with IDT, which dominates the market for the SRIO switches in the base station processor boxes. As a further move into this market, Samplify is seriously studying the digital up- and down-converters that would connect to the compression chips in the tower head. Up- and down-conversion are different algorithms from compression, but they are within the experience of the company’s developers.

Yet another new algorithm is at the heart of Samplify’s second new opportunity. Evans explains that a substantial part of China’s stimulus spending is going into rebuilding the country’s decayed local health care infrastructure. And one of the frequent items on the buy list for the local health centers is portable ultrasound imaging equipment. Regional governments are often putting out bids for low-end systems in large quantities and then distributing them to local clinics.

As it happens, the ultrasound signal chain is another familiar territory for Samplify, due to their SAM 1610 data-compressing ADC. “We sit in the signal chain right in front of this big FPGA that does the beam-forming algorithm,” Evans says. That’s just too good an invitation for a company full of applied mathematicians.

So Samplify set an algorithm team to work, and they came up with an approach that produces the same image quality as the big-iron ultrasound systems on industry-standard reference patterns, but at about a tenth the power of the big-system algorithms. Evans claims the Samplify algorithm can put the imaging performance of a high-end system into a low-cost mobile unit, using a low-cost FPGA. Samplify is showing the algorithm in a reference design jointly developed with Altera, and is actively seeking a strategic partner with whom to develop and market an ASIC implementation.

So far the company has done an excellent job of spotting an application for their algorithm, using the algorithm as a differential advantage to win a place in a signal chain, and then using integration to expand their footprint in the chain. They have been very adept at picking end-applications that are just starting into rapid growth, as well. If they can keep this up, Samplify is not going to look much like an algorithm developer in a few years, but a lot like a broad-line fabless semi shop.