By 2004, more PC webcams shipped with Vimicro's processors inside than with any other company's, Vimicro said. Logitech was among the camera makers that used them. Zhonghan Deng and Xiaodong Yang were among its co-founders in 1999, a year after they co-founded Pixim, an imaging startup. The Beijing company sold whole systems: chips, firmware, software and reference designs. When it filed to list on Nasdaq in 2005, it hoped to repeat its webcam win inside mobile phones.

Webcams First, Phones Next

Vimicro was fabless. It designed mixed-signal system-on-chip products and paid foundries to make them. Most of its operations were in China, where it found skilled design engineers, lower costs and a growing electronics industry close by. Its PC camera processors sold to the big camera brands. The next target was multimedia processors for mobile phones. Deng served as chairman, chief executive and president.

Ten Dollars an ADS

Vimicro priced its IPO at $10 per American depositary share in November 2005 and listed on the Nasdaq National Market as VIMC. Each ADS stood for four ordinary shares. Competition in camera and phone chips grew in the years that followed. In 2015 a group that included Deng and Yang took the company private for $3.375 a share in cash, or $13.50 per ADS. Vimicro left Nasdaq in December 2015.

Cover: Self-Portrait with camera, tripod and pistol, Alfred Stieglitz. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a camera on a tripod (webcam chips).