MStar Semiconductor, Inc. (晨星半導體股份有限公司; commonly "MStar" or "Little-M") was a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company founded in May 2002 and headquartered in Hsinchu Science Park, Taiwan. It listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TWSE: 3697) and was acquired by MediaTek Inc. — deal announced June 2012, share purchase completed February 2014 — and absorbed on January 1, 2019, when MediaTek's consolidated financial statements state MStar Semiconductor, Inc. "was dissolved due to the merger with MediaTek Inc." Wikipedia lists roughly 1,300 employees and ~US$1.07 billion revenue (2010); company/press materials cite 2,000–3,000+ employees at peak. Figures vary by source and should be treated as approximate.
Products/operations: mixed-signal system-on-chips for consumer electronics — LCD monitor/display controller ICs (which MStar claimed held 60%+ global share), analog and digital TV SoCs (MSD series), set-top-box SoCs (e.g., K6, K7Plus), touchscreen controller ICs, plus car infotainment, GPS and RFID lines. Handset/wireless chipsets were folded into MediaTek; in the 2018–19 split the TV chip line became MediaTek's TV business unit, touch ICs went to ILITEK, and STB products to MStar International Technology. Suppliers included Samsung, LG, Sony, Hisense, TCL and Skyworth.
Litigation posture: operating company, defendant only — 1 tracked case, 0 as plaintiff, 1 as defendant. That 0/1 profile is typical of a component supplier pulled into a customer-facing complaint, not a patent asserter. The sole tracked matter is in the U.S. International Trade Commission; there is no Eastern District of Texas clustering.
Notable case: DivX, LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al. (complaint filed September 10, 2020; ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-1222), naming MStar as a respondent within the MediaTek group alongside Samsung, LG, TCL and Realtek. DivX, a San Diego video-compression licensor, asserted adaptive-bitrate-streaming and trick-play patents; MediaTek settled and was terminated from the investigation in March 2021. A parallel Delaware action (C.A. No. 20-1203) also named MStar. Earlier, a 2004 ITC ruling found MStar infringed a Genesis Microchip LCD patent.