Bristol-based fabless semiconductor company XMOS
Semiconductor has added new venture funding of $16m, which comes
from Esprit, Amadeus and the new investor, Foundation Capital, a
Californian VC company which backed Atheros, CoWare and
Tensilica.
Hermann Hauser of Amadeus Capital Partners is also joining the XMOS
board of directors.
“We are delighted to continue our support of XMOS. The speed at
which the company’s technology has moved from University science to
a commercial proposition has been remarkable,” said Hauser,
"Customer reaction has been extremely positive and SDS has the
opportunity to be a truly disruptive technology.”
In
July,
XMOS launched itself onto the market after two years developing
its products in stealth mode. The products are a new class of
semiconductor devices called software defined semiconductor devices
(SDS) aimed at bringing low-cost user programmability to the
consumer electronics industry. The chips are programmable in C.
The company’s first prototype products are currently at TSMC. In
Q4 07, technical details of the architecture and beta tool
availability will be announced, and in Q1 08, the first device
family, launched at price points between $1 and $10, will be
introduced along with development tools and a software IP
library.
“We are very pleased with the progress that XMOS has made since our
investment last year and have been greatly encouraged by the level
of interest in their products already being shown by some of the
world’s leading consumer electronics companies,” said Alan Duncan,
a partner with Esprit Capital Partners and a director of
XMOS.
“As the pioneer in software defined silicon, XMOS is well
positioned to dominate the consumer electronics space,” said Bill
Elmore of Foundation Capital, who also joins the XMOS board of
directors.