GEO Semiconductor Inc. ("GEO SEMI" - a Delaware company) has acquired the assets related to two unique pixel processing platform technologies and the associated IC businesses from Silicon Optix ("SO"). Both the Realta and GEO IC's are in production. The transaction closed on May 11, 2009, and has made GEO the absolute leader in video and geometry processing!

SO was founded by Paul Russo in 2000, to spin-off geometry processing technology from Genesis Microchip. Genesis Microchip, also founded by Paul Russo, started the first phase of the digital video revolution, went public in 1998 (NASDAQ: GNSS), and reached a market cap of $2 billion at its peak. It was recently acquired by ST Micro.

The Realta chip's video processing algorithms have gone through 100's of thousands of hours of Hollywood video content, to achieve absolute best-in-class video algorithms for de-interlacing, cadence detection, scaling, detail enhancement and, most critically, various forms of noise reduction (Gaussian, codec, etc.). These capabilities, in addition to superb video quality, also make possible material reductions in bandwidth requirements for video over IP (noise kills encoders). Needing a new generation of silicon, Teranex Inc. partnered with SO in 2002 and was acquired in 2004. That acquisition gave birth to the Realta chip which revolutionized the way HD/SD video processing is done - in software! Teranex was awarded an Engineering Emmy Plaque award in 2007 for its SIMD technology impact on the television industry.

GEO also acquired absolute leadership in geometry processing. This effort was initially started at Genesis Microchip and led to the creation of Silicon Optix. This allowed for a decade of technology, applications and fundamental patent maturation. The emerging growth of High Brightness LED and Laser light sources, and the many new applications they will spawn, will allow GEO to become the leader in these markets.