Future Waves, a fabless RF chip company targeting the digital broadcast market, has completed a $4.75m funding round.
As a result, the RF CMOS specialist, which was formed out of Imperial College spin-out Toumaz Technology, is planning an expansion of its business with a mulit-band chip for the mobile TV market.
Future Waves, which has an operation at Abingdon in the UK, is developing an RF chipset which can be used for the various standards and frequency bands used for mobile TV which are being adopted around the world.
“We are entering a great new wave of digital radio technology for consumer applications and the new funding will now help us target the emerging markets for mobile TV in Asia offering enormous potential for the Future Waves ultra-Low power Fenix 2 Multi-standard Tuner,” said Professor Chris Toumazou chairman of Future Waves.
The Fenix chip is based on low-power mixed-signal and RF technology first developed by Toumaz. Initially winning design-ins in the DAB radio market, the same low power CMOS RF technology is being used to develop the mobile TV tuner.
This next generation of chips is being prepared for mass production in Q4 this year.
Nanoscience Inc. is a leading investor in Future Waves. This latest round brings total investment in Future Waves since early 2007 to $15m.