What the Heck Does Conexant Do?

ast Friday, Foolish godfather Tom Gardner wondered aloud what the heck Conexant Systems (Nasdaq: CNXT) does. How is this company different from any other semiconductor designer with a swooning long-term stock chart?
And that got me thinking. I would like to think that I know Conexant better than most, having covered the company from many angles in the past. This is a specialist in audio, video, and communications signal processing that faces off against like-minded chip slingers such as Marvell Technology Group (Nasdaq: MRVL), Silicon Laboratories, and Zoran (Nasdaq: ZRAN) when looking for customer signings. It's also a fab-less business, meaning that manufacturing is outsourced to third-party foundries. So far, so good.
The badIf you asked me at gunpoint why anybody would pick a Conexant chip over Marvell or Zoran, I'd probably be praying for my life really quick. Come up with an investment thesis? Same thing. Give me a browser and some time to do research, and I still come up empty-handed on both questions.

http://adf.ly/4T66Tom is right: Conexant can't explain what makes it special. Follow along as I try to figure it out, OK?
Let's start at the company's "about us" web page: "Conexant Systems is a leading provider of solutions for imaging, audio, embedded modem, and video surveillance applications – areas where the company has established leadership positions."
OK, but that tag line would work for Marvell or STMicroelectronics (NYSE: STM) too -- except that those other guys wouldn't brag about modem chips. Hold that thought.
How about the corporate governance credo off Conexant's investor relations site? Uh-oh, nothing but boilerplate blather that doesn't mean anything; no mission or vision, no clearly defined goals.
Investor presentations sounds like a promising resource. Oh, but it's empty. There are no press releases in the archives. SEC filings fare even worse -- you get a web server error there. Is anybody running this ghost ship? Would you help me count the tumbleweeds to the soothing sounds of crickets and loons?
The worseOK, so I have to get Conexant's 10-K statement off some other site. The business description there doesn't make me feel any better:

Installing Conexant full speed modem driver on Fedora 11

I found that some people have problem installing this driver on Fedora 11 (using available guidelines in Internet for Ubuntu), so I decided to try installing it on my system (which has a Conexant HSF modem chipset). I could install and use the driver successfully, but I think its license doesn’t allow me to distribute the final modified RPM package. So, I decided to create a simple shell script to create the package and put it here. (I wonder if we should put such documents inside Fedora wiki or not. Maybe I should communicate with Fedora Documentation people about it or read about contributing there?! Or maybe it is as easy as creating a new Wiki page there…)

Anyway, These are the steps to build a free full speed Conexant modem driver:

1. Download .tar.gz file of the free full speed driver release by dell from http://linux.dell.com/files/ubuntu/hardy/modem-drivers/hsf/ (Download this file for 64 bit Fedora systems(x86_64) and this one for 32 bit(Fedora-i386,i586 or i686) systems)

2. Download the latest modem driver from Linuxant (.tar.gz version). However notice that the following script is written for version 7.80.02.04, for later versions this script should be modified. So, to use this script without modification, you should download this file for 64bit Fedora and this one for 32 bit ones.

3. Download this script, put it beside those downloaded files and run the script (If you run it as a regular user – which is recommended – you might need to run rpmdev-setuptree command first).

4. Now, you should be able to find the final RPM in ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64 (or ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/i586).

5. If you have an HDA modem, you must install Linuxant alsa driver from http://www.linuxant.com/alsa-driver/

6. Now, you can install the generated rpm package. You might need to restart the system before using your modem. You can check your modem by running minicom to see if it can communicate with your modem.

Good luck!

http://hedayatvk.wordpress.com/2009/08/05/installing-conexant-full-speed-modem-driver-on-fedora-11/