Cambridge Wireless, the club of Cambridge-based wireless companies, has signed a memorandum of understanding to link up with Silicon South-West, the body which promotes the interests of hi-tech companies in the West of England.

"The idea is to collaborate, share best practice, activities and knowledge and promote innovation within small companies", Stirling Essex, director of Cambridge Wireless, told Electronics Weekly, adding, "people who've done it exchange knowledge with people trying to make it."

Essex pointed out that investors looking for small company target investments, and large companies which are wary about taking on small companies as suppliers, can have their concerns and queries addressed by organisations such as Cambridge Wireless and Silicon South-West.

"Someone standing in Cambridge may look at Bristol and think it's a long way away," said Simon Bond, director of Silicon South-West, "but someone in Shanghai or Mumbai looking at Cambridge and Bristol doesn't see them as very far away from each other. We're on exactly the same agenda and believe the sum of the parts will be greater than the whole."

The joint aim of Cambridge Wireless and Silicon South-West is, added Bond: "To produce start-ups in quantities attractive to venture capital."

In Bristol there is a fair degree of co-operation between the companies. "We share quite a lot of know-how," said Mark Lippett, vice president of engineering at XMOS Semiconductor, "it's not uncommon that, if we have a problem in production or silicon, we'll call our friends in picoChip or Icera."

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