July 19, 2010

Enalvo to develop home network chip

A Bristol startup is aiming to do for modems in the home what Texas Instruments did for telecoms modems.

Enalvo is creating a soft modem chip that can handle any home networking protocol on any wire, from coax through telephone lines to powerline, with speeds up to 1Gbit/s.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on July 19, 2010 4:44 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 14, 2010

Savantech aims to automate wafer fabs

Scottish startup Savantech has launched its first product to help automate wafer fabs, although the technology can be used for other high tech manufacturing applications.

Savantech, based at the Alba Centre in Livingstone, has been a consultancy since 2005 and employs just 7 people directly. Now it has turned its software integration tool into a full blown standard technology-based product called CoreTegral, for wafer fabs to use.

This has only been possible with the recent development of Microsoft's .Net tools and Silverlight technology says founder and CEO Brad Connor.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on July 14, 2010 8:47 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 13, 2010

UK chip startup takes on 60GHz

Bristol startup BluWireless has developed a working 60GHz radio front end in a 40nm process for high speed links in the home and office, and is expecting to sign up angel funding in the next few weeks.

The standards have been settled with the Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGiG) specification being adopted across the industry, avoiding the problems of competing standards that killed  UltraWideband, says founder and CTO, Ray McConnell, speaking at the recent Wireless2.0 conference.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on July 13, 2010 2:08 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 5, 2010

Swedish chip startup raises €10m for wireless chip development

Swedish wireless system on chip startup Nanoradio has raised €10m from its existing investors to develop a new line of chips.

It has launched a new line of low power devices - the NRX600/605 Eco-Fi - optimised for audio over WiFi in mobile phones and is looking to further expand the product line.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on July 5, 2010 2:22 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

July 2, 2010

Business Angel hits out at 'stealth mode'

A leading Business investor has hit out at startup companies that run under 'stealth mode' refusing to talk openly about their developments.

Writing on his Meteorical blog, investor Brian Dorricot points to an entrepreneur he met three years ago who was insistent that Dorricot signed a non disclosure agreement before revealing the world-stopping idea. The pitch was that he would be so impressed that he couldn't fail to part with money, and so, eventually he did sign. The idea: streaming films over the internet.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on July 2, 2010 9:09 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)





July 1, 2010

Seminar debates European venture capital model

Is the European model of venture capital for chip start-ups broken?

The National Microelectronics Institute (NMI) is asking that question in the first of a series of panel debate topics to take place at Future World Symposium in London in September.

The session on 'financing the next wave of semiconductor innovation' is chaired by Malcolm Penn of chip researchers Future Horizons and will look at the declining availability of VC funding and determine potential alternative funding strategies for start-up companies.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on July 1, 2010 2:30 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 30, 2010

Movidius wins first Romanian R&D grant from EU

Dublin-based Mobile video chip startup Movidius has won an EU research and development grant for a team of academics and engineers in Romania to work on 3D technology.

The venture backed company has had a substantial development presence in Timisoara, Romania, since it started, and now employs over 30 engineers focused on software development for the Myriad platform.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on June 30, 2010 3:56 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 22, 2010

UK trials of IPWireless technology start

All three UK operators are to trial data-intensive multimedia broadcast technology developed by IPWireless in Chippenham.

O2, Orange, and Vodafone are jointly launching a  pilot of Integrated Mobile Broadcast (IMB) with equipment from IPWireless, Ericsson and Streamezzo.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on June 22, 2010 2:35 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 18, 2010

Cognovo launches Software Defined Modem solution for LTE handsets

Gordon Aspin CEO Cognovo.jpgCambridge spin out Cognovo has launched a Software Defined Modem (SDM) platform design for next generation LTE wireless broadband data systems using technology it acquired last year from ARM.

Half the 30-strong design team comes from ARM's Argberg vector processor development team in Leuven, Belgium, joining a team of ex TTPcom engineers who were laid off  after the acquisition by Motorola 18 months ago. The venture is funded by the founders and an unspecified equity stake from ARM.
 

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on June 18, 2010 5:07 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

June 14, 2010

Imagination backs social media audio software

Silicon IP developer Imagination Technologies has invested in the first round of funding for a London-based social media software company. AudioBoo aims to do for voice what Twitter did for text, allowing comments to be easy shared between users.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on June 14, 2010 4:28 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)





June 4, 2010

Nanotech startup P2i raises an extra £5.5m

Abingdon-based nanotech startup P2i has raised an additional £5.5m, bringing the total investment in the liquid repellent nano-coating venture to £17.2m.

The company, a spinoff from the Ministry of Defence in 2004, makes repellent coatings that are used in a wide number of areas, including electronics, industrial filters and military clothing. Its Aridion coating for electronic equipment is used to protect hearing aids and batteries from water damage, reducing equipment failure caused by rain, high humidity and accidental wearing in the shower.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on June 4, 2010 11:02 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 24, 2010

European VC model is broken say startups

The European model of venture capital is broken and startups should look at other sources of funding say two entrepreneurs.

"The semiconductor VC model is broken and I think irrevocably broken," said David Tester, co-founder of Air Semiconductor, speaking at a SiliconSouthWest seminar last week.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on May 24, 2010 1:13 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 21, 2010

Movidius and Icera see funding boost for chip ventures

Despite the recent lack of any venture capital investment in chip startups last quarter, two deals this week have boosted the sector.

Movidius in Dublin has raised $7.5m Series B investment fron existing Vcs and angel investors. The money is being used to fund Movidius' growth as it deploys its Myriad platform of advanced imaging capabilities including 3D video capture in the next generation of mobile handsets.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on May 21, 2010 4:45 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 14, 2010

Materials development spinout hits the market

ilika_logo 1.jpgUniversity of Southampton spin-out Ilika started trading today as a public company on the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) of the London Stock Exchange. The 'materials discovery' company has a market capitalisation of £18.7m and raised £4.4m from the placing.

The company was founded in 2004 to use technology developed by researchers at University's School of Chemistry to accelerate the way patentable materials are tested and developed.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on May 14, 2010 8:09 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

May 11, 2010

ProVision heads for retail

provision - Steve Cliffe CEO left Matthew Trowbridge chairman.jpgThe high reliability wireless high definition video technology developed by Bristol startup ProVision Communications is heading onto the shelves of retailers in a few weeks time.

The initial products are TV senders that use existing WiFi technology to link HD TVs and set top boxes around the house with ProVision's software and custom antenna, but the company is also designing the technology into set top boxes and looking at high end TVs.

(Pictured are Steve Cliffe, ProVision CEO, left, Matthew Trowbridge, Chairman, right)

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on May 11, 2010 2:40 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)





May 4, 2010

Dutch startup tackles multicore code parallelisation

Dutch startup Vector Fabrics has raised E1m to commercialise software for one of the most challenging problems in the industry today - parallelising code to run on multicore processors.

The products all run on servers in the cloud, and users pay either a small monthly subscription or pay-as-you-go. This will make it more attractive to small and medium sized companies, says CEO and co-founder Mike Beunder. 

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on May 4, 2010 10:43 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 27, 2010

UK investment in semiconductor startups plummets

The UK saw a reasonably healthy growth in investment in technology startups last quarter, except for the semiconductor sector.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on April 27, 2010 10:37 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Audium Semiconductor assets bought by NXT

Amplifier chip startup Audium Semiconductor has closed and its assets have been bought by flat panel speaker maker NXT.

NXT said it has been monitoring Audium's ultra-low power technology for some time and plans to use it for its Balanced Mode Radiator technology ("BMR").

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on April 27, 2010 10:20 AM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 26, 2010

Creativity Software wins backing for location-based services

London-based embedded software house Creativity Software has been backed by investment house MMC Ventures to build worldwide sales of its location based services (LBS)  network infrastructure, middleware and end user applications.

Creativity is one of only a few companies that provide a 'one stop shop' suite of software so that mobile network operators can deploy revenue generating location-aware services.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on April 26, 2010 3:36 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

April 22, 2010

Akya launches second generation of reconfigurable technology

Yorkshire startup Akya has launched the second generation of its dynamically reconfigurable logic (DRL) IP.

ART2.1 can now run up to twice as fast as its predecessor and will work significantly better with code generated by high-level-language compilers. It also expects to announce its first customer soon.

DRL technology has huge potential advantages over other programmable technologies in terms of power, speed and size, in equipment from portable media players to telecommunications backbones. It makes the design and implementation of reconfigurable chips simpler by separating dataflow circuitry from control logic, and by providing a large, ready-made library of IP building blocks for designers to work with.

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Posted by Alun Williams - Electronics Weekly.com on April 22, 2010 5:57 PM | | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)







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About the author

Nick Flaherty has been covering technology and startups since 1990 and is based in Bristol, where he co-founded the SiliconSouthWest network. During that time he has worked for most of the electronics magazines and newspapers in the UK and several in Europe and the US, covering all areas of the industry. He blogs at The Embedded blog and Portable Multimedia and at www.flaherty.co.uk.

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