Nigel Toon, co-founder of Icera Semiconductor,
is leaving to become CEO of picoChip
in succession to Guillaume d'Eyssautier.
"picoChip has huge potential, its multi-core DSP can go into
many other applications but the key is to drive success in the
femtocell market. That is my No.1 focus, and the other applications
will be an add-on", Toon told Electronics Weekly.
Asked if, as a co-founder leaving Icera, he had lost confidence
in the future of the company Toon replied: "No not at all. I'm
still a shareholder in Icera. This opportunity came along, and
Icera and picoChip have some common investors, and it was too good
an opportunity to turn down. I'm very sad to leave Icera but I
leave it in good hands. They've got a pretty solid team - Stan,
Simon, Steve and the others."
Asked if leaving Icera would have any effect on his shareholding
in the company, Toon replied: "I hope not. I have founding stock in
Icera. If the company goes on to do great things and IPOs, I get to
gain from that as well."
Had he left Icera because the chance of an IPO looks remote for
a while? "No not at all", replied Toom, "it's been a great
experience. We've raised money, we've got great customers, we've
grown it from four to 300 people."
picoChip is further down the track than Icera with substantial
revenues gained in the Wimax market and fast-growing revenues from
the femtocell business.
"picoChip's got to an interesting point", said Toon, "it's got
revenues, it's got a good management team and my opportunity is to
contribute in femtocells and then expand the customer base in other
directions as well. We've got over 100 customers today, it's a
great base to build from."
The picoChip architecture can address any DSP problem. At the
moment it is addressing wireless telecommunications applications
because that is the interest of picoChip co-founder Doug Pulley,
but is applicable widely elsewhere. One non-telecommunications area
which picoChip is currently selling chips into is imaging.
"Altera (Toon's alma mater before Icera) had a very broad
customer base," said Toon, "femtocell is the No.1 focus then we'll
add to that."
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