Fabless start-up company Nanotech Semiconductor has received a $2.5m injection of funding.

Total funding for the company now amounts to over $10m, which includes $2m from a customer for a specific project. The company claimed it would reach break-even later this year.

Nanotech has a low power optical fibre comms technology aimed at mobile phones, camcorders and laptops. It has already signed joint development agreements with two big name manufacturers to use its CMOS transceiver technology for plastic optical fibre links carrying a data rate of 1.25Gbit/s.

Gary Steele, CEO at the firm, said: “We believe we now have the largest - and best - development team in the world dedicated to analogue CMOS ICs for fibre based communications and we are very grateful for the support of customers and investors in allowing us to grow the business”.

The company, which has 30 design engineers based in Bracknell and Bristol, has already developed chips for in-car plastic fibre comms in partnership with Infineon Technologies.