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Sunday 12 October 2008
Design
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Wireless start-up investment on a high
Wednesday 27 June 2007
A new round of funding for PicoChip reflects the growing cost of wireless semiconductor start-ups. The extra $27m takes total investment to over $70m.
Another West Country wireless chip start-up, Icera, has had over $100m invested.
“There are two things. One is that semiconductor start-ups are costing more and more. The other is that the number of wireless standards, and the amount of development required, are going up and up,” Rupert Baines, v-p for marketing at PicoChip, told EW.
PicoChip’s latest tranche of money will be spent on working capital, growing sales and support, and developing new products for wireless standards such as TD-SCDMA (China’s 3G cellular standard), LTE and 4G. According to Baines, the firm will develop several new chips to address those areas.
“The picoArray [architecture] is suited to any advanced wireless standard,” said PicoChip’s CEO Guillaume d’Eyssautier.
PicoChip’s multi-core DSP array is the basis of complete femtocell, picocell and macrocell reference designs for WiMAX and HSPA.
The cost of supporting so many emerging wireless technologies is worrying venture capitalists.
“Talking to VCs, there is concern about how much money an IC company takes,” said Baines. “When fabs became too expensive, the foundry changed the semiconductor business model. Now, with the cost of design going up and up, maybe there’s a need to change the business model again.”
Baines pointed to the ideas of Rahul Sud (general partner in Silicon Capital who has set up an outsourced design company called LogicFab) as something which could change the business model for VC-backed start-up IC companies.
Another West Country wireless chip start-up, Icera, has had over $100m invested.
“There are two things. One is that semiconductor start-ups are costing more and more. The other is that the number of wireless standards, and the amount of development required, are going up and up,” Rupert Baines, v-p for marketing at PicoChip, told EW.
PicoChip’s latest tranche of money will be spent on working capital, growing sales and support, and developing new products for wireless standards such as TD-SCDMA (China’s 3G cellular standard), LTE and 4G. According to Baines, the firm will develop several new chips to address those areas.
“The picoArray [architecture] is suited to any advanced wireless standard,” said PicoChip’s CEO Guillaume d’Eyssautier.
PicoChip’s multi-core DSP array is the basis of complete femtocell, picocell and macrocell reference designs for WiMAX and HSPA.
The cost of supporting so many emerging wireless technologies is worrying venture capitalists.
“Talking to VCs, there is concern about how much money an IC company takes,” said Baines. “When fabs became too expensive, the foundry changed the semiconductor business model. Now, with the cost of design going up and up, maybe there’s a need to change the business model again.”
Baines pointed to the ideas of Rahul Sud (general partner in Silicon Capital who has set up an outsourced design company called LogicFab) as something which could change the business model for VC-backed start-up IC companies.
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