EE Times updates list of emerging startups

F.Y.I.

http://eetimes.eu/design/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206101910&printable=true <http://eetimes.eu/design/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=206101910&printable=true>

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EE Times updates list of emerging startups

Peter Clarke <mailto:PClarke@cmp-europe.com>

(02/01/2008 10:53 AM EST)

URL: http://eetimes.eu/design/206101910 <http://eetimes.eu/design/206101910>

The EE Times 60 Emerging Startups list, first published in April 2004, has been updated to version 7.0 to reflect the latest corporate, commercial, technology and market conditions.

Some companies have dropped off the list — otherwise known as the Silicon 60 — because they have been acquired; some have moved on to an initial public offering of shares; and others have moved beyond the list with the passage of time. As they have matured other, younger startups have been nominated to be moved off the EE Times radar list and on to the main list. At this iteration 15 companies have been brought on to the list.

The companies in version 7.0 of the EE Times Emerging Startups list have been selected by editors based on a mix of criteria including: technology, intended market, maturity, financial position and management and investment profile.

The startups on the Silicon 60 list are the companies involved in semiconductor chips, memory, MEMS, EDA software, embedded applications, foundry manufacturing, semiconductor production equipment, electronics subsystems, packaging and materials that have made an impression on EE Times editors. They are emerging companies to watch — for a wide variety of reasons.

Readers are welcome to nominate their own emerging startups for inclusion in a future iteration of the EE Times 60 Emerging Startups list. Nominations should be supported by a short citation explaining why the company is suitable for inclusion on the list.

Send comments and nominations to Peter Clarke (pclarke@cmp.com).

EE Times 60 emerging startups list version 7.0

Achronix Semiconductor Corp. (San Jose, Calif.) is a startup company associated with Cornell University from where it has licensed patents. In April 2006 the company announced a prototype field programmable gate array that it said can operate at clock frequencies of 1.93-GHz. www.achronix.com <http://www.achronix.com>

Advanced Micro-Fabrication Equipment Inc. (Shanghai, China), founded in 2004 and also known as AMEC, has been described as the Applied Materials of China. Indeed AMEC, having rolled out its initial tools, unveiled its strategy and disclosed plans to go public, has also locked legal horns with Applied. www.amec-inc.com <http://www.amec-inc.com>

Ambric Inc. (Beaverton, Ore.), founded in 2003, is a fabless semiconductor company developing a software-programmable IC platform based on a programming model for massively-parallel embedded computing. www.ambric.com <http://www.ambric.com>

Arteris Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) started in Paris in 2003 as is an intellectual-property vendor commercializing a packet-based on-chip network. The company has moved its headquarters to Silicon Valley while maintaining a French subsidiary. www.arteris.com <http://www.arteris.com>

Artimi Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.), founded in 2002, is a fabless semiconductor company developing single-chip Ultra Wideband (UWB) transceivers with R&D in Cambridge, England, and sales offices in Japan and Taiwan. www.artimi.com <http://www.artimi.com>

ATEEDA Ltd. (Edinburgh, Scotland), founded in 2006, specializes in testing circuits have both analog and digital sections and has developed a tool that allows analog circuits to be tested on digital testers. www.ateeda.com <http://www.ateeda.com>

Atoptech Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.), founded in 2003, has developed physical design EDA tools. Aprisa, based on AtopTech’s interconnect-centric optimization technology, supports design closure at 90nm, 65-nm and below. www.atoptech.com <http://www.atoptech.com>

Azuro Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) was founded in 2002 by Paul Cunningham and Steev Wilcox. The company has developed a technology for clock-tree synthesis that supports optimization for power consumption reduction. www.azuro.com <http://www.azuro.com>

Blaze DFM Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.), founded in October 2004, provides software to support "electrical DFM" and parametric yield for sub-100-nm circuits. The company landed $10 million in series B venture capital funding in March 2007 while also disclosing completion of its previously announced merger with Aprio Technologies Inc. www.blaze-dfm.com <http://www.blaze-dfm.com>

Boston Circuits Inc. (Burlington, Mass.), established in 2005, is a fabless multicore processor company focused on the embedded multimedia market. The gCORE family of processors ranges from eight to 16 processor cores on a single chip. www.bostoncircuits.com <http://www.bostoncircuits.com>

Calypto Design Systems Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.), founded in 2002, is a privately held EDA company focused on bridging electronic system-level design and integrated circuit implementation with an emphasis on sequential analysis and optimization for power consumption. www.calypto.com <http://www.calypto.com>

ChipSensor Ltd. (Limerick, Ireland), founded in 2006, is developing a technology that allows the surface of an IC to be used to sense temperature, humidity, certain gases and pathogens. The technology could be used to add functions to present day chips such as processors, or to produce new types of integrated smart sensor. www.chipsensors.com <http://www.chipsensors.com>

Ciranova Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.), founded in 2002, is a privately held EDA company focused on offering support to authors of parameterized cells. Since early 2006 the company has offered free downloads of PyCell Studio, which can be used to create OpenAccess p-cells. www.ciranova.com <http://www.ciranova.com>

Dafca Inc. (Framingham, Mass.), founded in 2003, is a provider of EDA software tools that help insert reconfigurable infrastructure for system-on-chip devices. www.dafca.com <http://www.dafca.com>

Emotiv Systems Inc. (San Francisco, Calif.), founded in 2003, is developing bio feedback systems based on a sensor cap. Such systems are likely to transform the way humans interact with computers and therefore with the electronic world. www.emotiv.com <http://www.emotiv.com>

EnOcean GmbH (Oberhaching, Germany) was founded in 2001 as a spin-off from the research labs of Siemens AG. Its charter is to create sensors that are wireless, that scavange energy from the environment and are reliable enough to be maintenance free. www.enocean.com <http://www.enocean.com>

GainSpan Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) is a developer of Wi-Fi sensor network technology. The company was an Intel incubator company before being spun out in 2006. In December 2007 the company completed its Series B funding round, raising $20 million with backing from Intel Capital. www.gainspan.com <http://www.gainspan.com>

Handshake Solutions NV (Eindhoven, Netherlands), has worked with ARM Holdings plc to produce an asynchronous processor based on the ARM9 core. The ARM996HS, claimed to be the first commercial clockless processor, was disclosed in February 2006 along with the claim that it could cut power consumption to nearly one third that of a similar clocked processor core. www.handshakesolutions.com <http://www.handshakesolutions.com>

HelioVolt Corp. (Austin, Texas), founded in 2001, has developed a new slant on compound semiconductors to produce a photovoltaic process that could beat existing technologies in cost of production as well as efficiency. A process based on rapid thermal annealing and anodic bonding allows copper-indium-gallium-selinide (CIGS) films to be deposited on just about any substrate. In October 2007 the company closed a $101 million Series B round of funding. www.heliovolt.com <http://www.heliovolt.com>

Hindustan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. (Bangalore, India), has been formed by a team of Silicon Valley based expatriate Indians with a view to building a series of wafer fabs near Hyderabad, India. The company has signed a memorandum of understanding that it will license 130-nanometer CMOS process technology from Infineon Technologies AG and make chips for cell phones, smartcards and automotive applications for the Indian market. www.hmscindia.com <http://www.hsmcindia.com>

Icera Semiconductor Inc. (Bristol, England), a fabless semiconductor company founded in 2002, provides chips for 3G-HSDPA handsets and datacards. It was founded by, amongst others, the founder of Element14 Ltd., a company which was eventually sold to Broadcom Corp. www.icerasemi.com <http://www.icerasemi.com>

Imperas Inc. (Palo Alto, Calif.) was formed in 2005 by Simon Davidmann, a serial EDA entrepreneur. The company plans to offer system development tools that combine the elaboration of both hardware and software while dealing with multiprocessing issues. www.imperas.com <http://www.imperas.com>

Innovative Silicon Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) is a 2002 start-up founded by Pierre Fazan (CTO) to develop an SOI-based single-transistor memory. Now led by Mark-Eric Jones, Innovative has licensed its “floating body” memory to Advanced Micro Devices Inc. amongst others. www.innovativesilicon.com <http://www.innovativesilicon.com>

InvenSense Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.), founded in 2003 by CEO Steven Nasiri, is a fabless developer of motion-sensing MEMS for consumer products based on the Nasiri fabrication process. www.invensense.com <http://www.invensense.com>

Kenet Inc. (Woburn, Mass.) is a fabless semiconductor company founded in 2003 to bring to market mixed-signal technology developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, particularly in the area of low-power conversion. www.kenetinc.com <http://www.kenetinc.com>

Kovio Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) was spun out from the MIT Media Laboratory by a team of scientists in 2001. The company is developing manufacturing technology that is expected to combine the low cost of graphics printing with the power and functionality of silicon-based semiconductor integrated circuits. www.kovio.com <http://www.kovio.com>

Light Blue Optics Ltd. (Cambridge, England) was founded in December 2003 by photonics researchers from Cambridge University Engineering Department. They set out to produce small, portable, power-efficient image projectors suitable for use in battery-powered electronic devices such as mobile phones and digital cameras. www.lightblueoptics.com <http://www.lightblueoptics.com>

Luminescent Technologies Inc. (Palo Alto, Calif.), backed by Sevin Rosen Funds, has developed a line of RET software products based on inverse lithography correction for use in optical proximity correction and phase-shift photomask applications. www.luminescent.com <http://www.luminescent.com>

EE Times 60 emerging startups list version 7.0

Maxscend Technologies Inc. (Shanghai, China), is a venture capital backed fabless IC company founded by a group of Silicon Valley returnees in April 2006. The company has designed and started shipping, a DAB/DAB+/DMB demodulator IC which can be used for mobile digital television reception in mobile phones, personal media players, USB dongles, and vehicle entertainment systems. www.maxscend.com <http://www.maxscend.com>

Mirics Semiconductor Inc. (Fleet, England), a fabless RF and mixed-signal chip startup founded in 2004, has started sampling OEMs in the mobile TV, digital radio and portable media player sectors with a single-chip tuner that can be used on multiple broadcast standards. www.mirics.com <http://www.mirics.com>

Molecular Imprints Inc. (Austin, Texas) was founded in 2001 to design, develop, manufacture and support imprint lithography systems to be used by semiconductor device and other industry manufacturers. www.molecularimprints.com <http://www.molecularimprints.com>

NanoIdent Technologies AG (Linz, Austria), has built a factory to pioneer the production of printed plastic semiconductors. The company is focused on printed photonic sensors for applications in the industrial, biometric, and life science markets. www.nanoident.com <http://www.nanoident.com>

Nanoradio AB (Kista, Sweden), fabless semiconductor company specializing in components for Wi-Fi applications, has raised more than $50 million in venture capital funding since its founding in 2004. www.nanoradio.com <http://www.nanoradio.com>

Nemerix SA (Manno, Switzerland), founded in April 2002, is a venture capital backed fabless semiconductor company specializing in global positioning by satellite integrated circuits, software and firmware. Cadence Design Systems Inc. was one of the investors in a $31 million VC round that was announced in September 2005. www.nemerix.com <http://www.nemerix.com>

Newport Media Inc. (Lake Forest, Calif.) is fabless semiconductor company that sells chips for digital audio and mobile television standards. Founded in January 2005 the company launched a highly integrated multi-standard mobile TV receiver in June 2007. www.newportmediainc.com <http://www.newportmediainc.com>

P.A.Semi Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) is a fabless semiconductor company developing a power-efficient multiprocessor architecture based on Power processor cores licensed from IBM Corp. The resulting modular architecture is aimed at both the embedded and high performance computing markets. The company, founded in 2003, is led by processor design luminary Dan Dobberpuhl. www.pasemi.com <http://www.pasemi.com>

Perpetuum Ltd. (Southampton, England) was founded in 2004 as a spinoff from the University of Southampton. The company develops electricity microgenerators that can harvest enough energy from vibrations in plant and equipment to power sensor nodes and transmit data from them wirelessly. www.perpetuum.co.uk <http://www.perpetuum.co.uk>

Phiar Corp. (Boulder Colo.), founded in 2001, is developing metal-insulator electronics where quantum tunneling across an insulator-insulator junction is the transport mechanism. The technology is capable of terahertz frequencies. www.phiar.com <http://www.phiar.com>

Polymer Vision Ltd. (Eindhoven, Netherlands) received 21 million euro (about $27.5 million) from Technology Capital SA of Luxemburg in January 2007 to help it launch a roll-up display technology and taking the company out of ownership of Royal Philips Electronics NV. www.polymervision.com <http://www.polymervision.com>

Prime Sense Inc. (Tel-Aviv, Israel) was founded in late 2005 as a fabless semiconductor company. It is developing a combination image sensor and image processor that it claims would give digital devices the ability to see and comprehend the world in 3D. Applications are seen in video games and communications. www.primesense.com <http://www.primesense.com>

Raza Microelectronics Inc. (Cupertino, Calif.) was formed in 2002 by Atiq Raza, an executive who previously worked at Advanced Micro Devices Inc. and NexGen Microsystems Inc. The company is producing processors for network processing. www.razamicroelectronics.com <http://www.razamicroelectronics.com>

RedMere Technology Ltd. (Dublin, Ireland), is offering chips for high-definition multimedia interface (HDMI) connectors which can support multigigabit per second wire-line communications. The company has raised about $19 million since its founding in 2004 and it has its first chips out. www.redmere.com <http://www.redmere.com>

ReVolt Technology AS (Staefa, Switzerland) was formed as a spinoff from Norwegian contract research institute Sintef in 2004. The company has developed a rechargeable zinc-air battery technology, which it claims could replace lithium-ion batteries currently used in portable applications. The company relocated to Switzerland in October 2006 and appointed Dieter Woschitz as chief executive officer in August 2007.www.revolttechnology.com <http://www.revolttechnology.no>

EE Times 60 emerging startups list version 7.0

SemIndia Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) is a company formed by expatriate Indians in California with a mission of making India a global hub for semiconductor manufacturing. The company is working with the Indian government, state governments, and other strategic partners and customers to create a wafer fab in India. www.semindia.in <http://www.semindia.in>

Sequans Communications SA (Paris, France), founded in 2003, has become a supplier of silicon and embedded software for WiMax-based wireless LAN systems. www.sequans.com <http://www.sequans.com>

Siano Mobile Silicon Ltd. (Netanya, Israel), founded in June 2004, develops digital television receivers tailored specifically for mobile communications and entertainment devices. www.siano-ms.com <http://www.siano-ms.com>

SiBeam Inc. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) was founded in December 2004 by a team from the Berkeley Wireless Research Center (BWRC) together with several wireless and high-speed communications industry veterans. The company claims to be the first to build 60-GHz chipsets using CMOS technology. www.sibeam.com <http://www.sibeam.com>

SiDense Corp. (Ottawa, Ontario), founded in 2004, is a developer of embedded nonvolatile memory intellectual property. End-market products include home entertainment consumer products, cellular telephones, RFID, medical, automotive and other uses. www.sidense.com <http://www.sidense.com>

Silicon Hive (Eindhoven, The Netherlands), provides parallel processing technology for consumer electronics and mobile phone markets. The company licenses embedded parallel processor architectures, compilers and programming tools to chip makers. It was spun out from Philips Research in 2007. www.siliconhive.com <http://www.siliconhive.com>

Silistix Ltd. (Manchester, England), founded in December 2003 as a spinoff from the Amulet asynchronous logic research group at the University of Manchester in England, has received backing from Intel Capital. www.silistix.com <http://www.silistix.com>

Solido Design Automation Inc. (San Ramon, Calif.) was founded in 2005 with a mission to address process-variation for transistor-level designers. Solido has developed a proprietary and patent-pending set of algorithms forming the core of its technology. www.soliodesign.com <http://www.solidodesign.com>

T3G Technology Co. Ltd. (Beijing, China) is a fabless chip company developing chipsets for the TD-SCDMA 3G mobile communications standard. The company is backed by Royal Philips Electronics, Datang Mobile, Motorola and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. www.t3gt.com <http://www.t3gt.com>

Takumi Technology Corp. (Santa Clara, Calif.), founded in October 2003, is a supplier of critical dimension aware software solutions for backend tapeout defect analysis and layout optimization. www.takumi-tech.com <http://www.takumi-tech.com>

Tilera Corp. (San Jose, Calif.), a developer of programmable ASICs and associated compilers, was founded by Anant Agarwal, professor of engineering and computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Agarwal serves as chief technology officer www.tilera.com <http://www.tilera.com>

Unity Semiconductor Corp. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) was founded in 2002 to exploit technology based on a change of resistance that can be produced in certain conductive metal oxides and giving rise to the possibility of non-volatile resistive RAM (RRAM) www.unitysemi.com <http://www.unitysemi.com>

Varioptic SA (Lyon, France), founded in 2002, has developed a range of electrically-controlled liquid lenses for use in cameras. The company has concluded a licensing agreement with STMicroelectronics NV. www.varioptic.com <http://www.varioptic.com>

VeriSilicon Holdings Co. Ltd. (Shanghai, China), founded in 2001, is a fabless ASIC design foundry focusing on providing semiconductor IP, design services and turnkey services including manufacturing, packaging, testing, and delivery. www.verisilicon.com <http://www.verisilicon.com>

WiQuest Communications Inc. (Allen, Texas), founded in 2003, is a fabless company developing chips for the ultrawideband (UWB) market. www.wiquest.com <http://www.wiquest.com>

XMOS Semiconductor Ltd. (Bristol, England) is a fabless semiconductor company founded by academic computer scientist David May, in June 2005. The company is developing software-programmable multicore processor arrays to implement semiconductor devices for consumer applications. www.xmos.com <http://www.xmos.com>

Xoomsys Inc. (Cupertino, Calif.), formed in 2004, is developing scalable, distributed processing software for large-scale circuit simulation using both industry-standard circuit simulators and inexpensive Linux computing clusters. www.xoomsys.com <http://www.xoomsys.com>

The announcement of version 6.1 of the Silicon 60, in September 2007, could be found here <http://www.eetimes.eu/201803916> when this story was first posted. Version 6.0 of the list, first published in June 2007, could be found here here <http://www.eetimes.eu/200001293> .

Version 5.1 of the list, from June 2006 could be found here <http://www.eetimes.eu/189400556> . Version 4.0 from November 2005, could be found here <http://www.eetimes.eu/173401577> when this story was first posted. Version 3.0 of the list, from April 2005, could be found here <http://www.eetimes.eu/162100048> . Version 2.0 of the list, published in October 2004, could be found here <http://www.eetimes.eu/49400011> and version 1.0 of the list, published April 2004, could be found here <http://www.eetimes.eu/18900273> when this article was first posted.