Bumped into Rodger Sykes last week. The former President and CEO of parallel processing specialists Picochip, and the co-founder and CEO of powerline start-up SiConnect, is President and CEO of MMIC solutions based in Malvern.
He said that everything he told me about MMIC solutions was off the record, but the web-site for the company gives a flavour.
‘The focus of MMIC solutions activity is advanced mm wave chip sets and modules for frequencies ranging from 35GHz to 110GHz. . . . . . . . . .MMIC solutions technology massively reduces development and manufacturing costs to finally bring these frequencies into commercial exploitation.’
Sykes sees the revolution in the UK electronics industry in the last 25 years, which has seen the disappearance of the large companies like GEC, Ferranti, STC, Plessey, Thorn and Marconi, as being very positive for the start up scene in terms of making engineers willing to risk working for start-ups.
In the old days it was almost impossible getting an engineer to leave one of the big companies to join a start-up.
Now the UK attitude is much more Silicon Valley though, on the Continent, things haven’t changed so much.
Hermann Hauser, founder of Acorn Computers and Amadeus Capital Ventures, describes the contrast this way: In Germany, if you’re an engineer working for Siemens and say you’re going to join a start-up, your girl-friend will ditch you; in California, your girl-friend will ditch you if you’re an engineer with a big company and turn down the opportunity to join a start-up..
Oh, by the way, watch out for MMIC solutions in Q1 2007. The first product could be coming out around about then.
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