Jennic Limited was a privately held UK-based fabless semiconductor company founded in 1996. The company developed microcontrollers that integrated radios with low-power wireless standards support; particularly 802.15.4, 6LoWPAN and Zigbee. It also supplied wired communications products, e.g. ATM[1] and RapidIO[2] cores.
Founded by CEO Jim Lindop, Jennic's main investors included UK billionaire Eddie Healey.[3][4] In addition to its headquarters in Sheffield, UK, the company had offices in China, Japan, Taiwan, and the US. Customers included IBM, Texas Instruments, Johnson Controls and Honeywell.[5]
Originally focused on IP licensing and design services, Jennic repositioned to focus on fabless semiconductor design in 2004.[6] Jennic also received funding from the Department of Trade and Industry in 2005.[7]
In July 2010, Jennic was acquired by Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors for $12.2 million, plus an additional $7.8 million in consideration if certain performance targets were met.[8] Approximately 50 UK-based Jennic employees transferred to NXP,[9] and the organization operated as the NXP Low Power RF product line based in Sheffield, England for a time, but in 2020, NXP decided to close the site in Sheffield.
Products developed by Jennic included JenNet, a wireless networking stack based on the IEEE 802.15.4 standard.[10] JenNet-IP included a 6LoWPAN protocol stack.[11] Jennic was the first chipset manufacturer to support this protocol for their 802.15.4 products.[12] In May 2011, NXP announced its intent to release JenNet-IP network layer software under an open source license.[13]