18 new companies join EE Times list of emerging startups

ersion 13.0 of the EE Times 60 Emerging Startups, a list first published in April 2004, is the latest iteration of our roster of new technology startups. The list reflects current corporate, commercial, technology and market conditions.

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Actlight SA (Lausanne, Switzerland), founded in 2010, by Serguei Okhonin, is a fabless semiconductor company developing designs and intellectual property for the combination of light and logic on silicon chips, including the use of CMOS for optical conversion for use in energy harvesting. www.act-light.com Adapteva Inc. (Lexington, Mass.), founded in 2008, Adapteva is a lean startup that has developed the Epiphany architecture of multicore processors. Adapteva, led by founder Anders Olofsson, is targeting defense and mobile consumer applications. The company claims to have reach the break-even point with less than $2 million of investment. www.adapteva.com

Ambiq Micro Inc. (Westlake Hills, Texas) founded in 2010, is a fabless chip company developing low power wireless processors based on ARM architecture and mixed-signal systems. Investors include Cisco Systems and ARM Holdings. www.ambiqmicro.com Andes Technology Corp. (Hsinchu, Taiwan), founded in 2005, is a developer and licensor of 32-bit processor technology and associated SoC platforms intended for a variety of embedded applications. The companys U.S.-trained founders are aiming Andes cores at the borders of markets owned by established licensors such ARM, MIPS and Tensilica. www.andestech.com

As before, some companies have dropped off the list - also known as the Silicon 60 after either being acquired, moving on to an initial public offering of shares or simply outgrowing our list as technology evolves. Eighteen new companies join version 13.0 (highlighted in red below). They were selected by our editors based on a mix of criteria including: technology, intended market, maturity, financial position, investment profile and executive leadership. The new startups on the Silicon 60 list are focused on semiconductor technologies for analog circuits, memory, logic, power, MEMS, optoelectronics, EDA software, foundry manufacturing, semiconductor production equipment, electronic subsystems, packaging and materials. They are emerging companies we deem worthy of tracking. Readers are invited 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 (peter.clarke@ubm.com).

Adesto Technologies Corp. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) was founded by CEO Narbeh Derhacobian in 2006. The company is developing a nonvolatile memory based on programmable metallization cell technology licensed from Axon Technologies Corp., a spinoff of Arizona State University. The company is backed by Arch Venture Partners and Applied Ventures amongst other venture capital companies. www.adestotech.com Altair Semiconductor Ltd. (Hod Hasharon, Israel), founded in 2005, is a fabless chip company developing 4G baseband processors and RF transceivers, in particular supporting LTE communications. www.altair-semi.com

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Baolab Microsystems SL (Barcelona, Spain) is pioneering the creation of MEMS devices within the back-end-of-line structure of CMOS wafers. The company, founded in July 2003, is initially applying its technology to switching for miniature RF relays inside CMOS, enabling smaller mobile phones. Baolab is backed by FonsInnocat, a venture capital fund. www.baolab.com Boston Power Inc. (Westborough, Mass.) was founded in 2005 and has made progress in developing longer lasting, faster charging lithium-ion batteries. www.boston-power.com

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Calxeda Inc. (Austin, Texas), founded in 2008 under the name Smooth-Stone, and is seeking to develop energy efficient server-on-a-chip processors based on multiple ARM processor cores. The company has received $48 million in investments from venture capital funds and strategic investors including ARM, ATIC and Texas Instruments. www.calxeda.com Cognovo Ltd. (Melbourn, England), was founded in July 2009, by the four founders of TTPCom, a developer of protocol stacks for mobile communications that rose to prominence in the 1990s. Cognovo plans to offer software for license for software-defined modems with a business model similar to that of TTPcom but aimed at 4G communications. ARM transferred some personnel and intellectual property into the company and took an equity stake in October 2009. www.cognovo.com Cosmic Circuits Inc. (Bangalore, India), founded in 2005, is a licensor of analog and mixed-signal intellectual property circuits (IP cores). The company provides a broad spectrum of IP ranging from power management, audio and voice to data converters, clocking circuits and analog front-end subsystems. www.cosmiccircuits.com Cyclos Semiconductor Inc. (Berkeley, Calif.) was founded in 2006 as a spinout from the University of Michigan. Based in Berkeley and Ann Arbor, Mich., Cyclos delivers resonant clock mesh semiconductor IP design , automation tools, and design consulting services for resonant clock mesh designs that can reduce the power consumption of clock circuits on ICs. www.cyclos-semi.com

with experience in advanced power management devices. EPCs CEO, Alex Lidow, is the co-inventor of the HEXFET power MOSFET and, in addition to holding positions in R&D, and manufacturing, was the CEO of International Rectifier for 12 years. www.epc-co.com Eight19 Ltd. (Cambridge, England), founded in 2010 as a spinoff from the local university, is focused on the device designs and printing processes that enable solar cells to be made roll-to-roll using solution-based organic chemistry and room-temperature printing techniques. The company is named for the length of time it takes light to travel from the sun to Earth: eight minutes and 19 seconds. www.eight19.com EnVerv Inc. (San Jose, Calif.), founded in 2009, is a fabless semiconductor company that offers power line communications ICs for metering and other control and monitoring applications. www.enverv.com. EoSemi Ltd. (Congleton, England) was founded in 2005 and has developed an all-silicon replacement for quartz crystal timing references with the potential to save space and cost in a variety of applications. www.eosemi.com EpiGaN NV (Hasselt, Belgium) is a spinoff formed to commercialize a decade of research into compound semiconductors at IMEC. The company, formed in 2010 supplies III-nitride epitaxial materials for electronic device manufacturing. www.epigan.com

3.0 communication specification. www.frescologic.com

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GainSpan Corp. (San Jose, Calif.) is a developer of Wi-Fi sensor network technology. The company was an Intel incubator company before being spun out in 2006. The company's main claim is of a low power chip technology and integrated networking stack that allows Wi-Fi connections to be run from battery-powered systems and to target Internet of Things (IoT) applications. www.gainspan.com Glo AB. (Lund, Sweden), founded in 2005, is developing nanowire semiconductor LEDs based on based on proprietary heterostructured semiconductor nanowire epitaxial growth and process technologies. www.glo.se GreenPeak Technologies BV (Utrecht, Netherlands) was formed through the merger of Xanadu Wireless and Ubiwave in July 2007. Xanadu had been operating in stealth mode since early 2005. Ubiwave had been pioneering wireless mesh protocols since 2003. GreenPeak, backed by DJF Esprit, GIMV, Motorola Ventures and Allegro Investment Fund offers wireless transceiver chips with energy harvesting ready interfaces for use in wireless sensor networks. www.greenpeak.com

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4M Wireless Ltd. (Luton, England) was founded in 2006. It designs and develops software products to enable fourth generation mobile wireless based on 3GPP Long Term Evolution (LTE) standards. www.4mwireless.com Fresco Logic Inc. (Beaverton, Ore.) was founded in 2008 and has developed a controller chip for the USB
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Heliatek GmbH (Dresden, Germany) was formed in 2006 as a spinoff from the Universities of Dresden and Ulm. The company has developed organic solar cells from small molecule organic dyes that are chemically synthesized from hydrocarbons. The company has built an initial production facility in Dresden where it is using its technology to produce, flexible photovoltaic modules on a film substrate. www.heliatek.com

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Efficient Power Conversion Corp. (El Segundo, Calif.) was founded in November 2007 by three engineers

EE Times 60 Emerging Startups

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Imprint Energy (Alameda, Calif.) was incorporated in 2010 to commercialize a flexible, rechargeable battery technology developed by the companys founders at the University of California at Berkeley. Imprint Energys polymer electrolyte technology is said to enable scalable, print-based manufacturing of energy dense and ultra-thin batteries based on nonlithium earth-abundant materials. www.imprintenergy.com Ingenic Semiconductor Co. Ltd. (Beijing, China), founded in 2005, is a provider of embedded CPUs. It has a low-power CPU architecture is called Xburst with a specialized pipeline engine. The solution has penetrated into the e-dictionary, personal media player, e-book and tablet computer markets, into which Ingenic claims to have shipped more than 30 million units. Ingenic is now a licensee of MIPS Technology. www.ingenic.cn InVisage Technologies Inc. (Menlo Park, Calif.) is a fabless semiconductor company developing QuantumFilm, an imaging-sensing technology that it claims will replace silicon. Its first product enables the high-fidelity, high-resolution images from handheld devices like camera phones and PDAs. Founded in 2006, InVisage Technologies is venture funded by RockPort Capital, Charles River Ventures, InterWest Partners, and OnPoint Technologies. www.invisageinc.com Isorg SA (Grenoble, France), founded in 2010 as a spin-off from CEA-LITEN, converts plastic and glass surfaces into smart surfaces through the application of printed, organic optoelectronic sensors. The possibility of 3-D product integration allows the recognition of many shapes and form factors. The company name is a contraction of Image Sensor ORGanic. www.isorg.fr

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Leyden Energy Inc. (Fremont, Calif.), formerly known as Mobius Power Inc., was founded in 2007 to commercialize technology covered by a lithium-ion cell technology patent acquired from chemical giant Dupont. The seed technology served as the foundation for subsequent Leyden Energy research which has led to the company's Li-imide battery platform. www.leydenenergy.com

for infrastructure devices and terminals. www.mimoon.de Movea SA (Grenoble, France) provides motion processing chips, software, embeddable firmware and IP for consumer electronics. Formed in March 2007 as a spinout from the French research institute CEA-Leti, Movea acquired the Gyration consumer electronics brand in 2008. www.movea.com Movidius Ltd. (Dublin, Ireland), founded as Movidia in 2005, is a fabless semiconductor company whose processor and application software delivers video editing and postproduction capabilities for the creation of user-generated content aimed at mobile social networking. With offices in Dublin and Hong Kong and a software development center in Romania, Movidius is backed by Celtic House Venture Partners, Capital-E, Emertec Gestion, AIB Seed Capital Fund and Enterprise Ireland. www.movidius.com

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mCube Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) was founded in September 2009 and has developed a method for integrating MEMS motion sensors above electronic circuitry in a standard CMOS wafer fab. The mCube eMotion sensor platform combines single-chip motion sensors with tuned software algorithms. www.mcube-inc.com Memoir Systems Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.) is a 2009 startup company offering embedded memory IP aimed at SoCs being designed for the networking and multicore processor markets. The company claims its "algorithmic" systems approach to embedded memory provision provides an order of magnitude increase in embedded memory performance. www.memoir-systems.com MicroGen Systems Inc. (Ithaca, N.Y.) is developing products based on piezoelectric vibrational energy harvester technology. The MEMS components serve as micro-power sources to extend rechargeable battery lifetime. They also could eliminate the need for batteries in some applications. The company was founded by Robert Andosca in 2007. www.microgensystems.com MimoOn GmbH (Duisberg, Germany) was founded in 2006 and supplies a software implementation of the 3GPP LTE physical layer and protocol stack
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Neul. Ltd. (Cambridge, England), founded in 2010 by several original founders of Cambridge Silicon Radio, is working on radio network standards and terminals to exploit "white-space" spectrum at around 400 to 800 MHz. This spectrum is only partially used in many countries for analog and digital TV broadcasts. Neul is proposing an adaptive protocol that can be used for communications between IP-addressed objects in the Internet of Things. www.neul.com Nufront Co. Ltd. (Beijing, China), founded in 2004, works in wireless broadband communications and broadcast IC design, video search and digital imaging technologies. It developed TMMB, a mobile TV system before CMMB finally became China's standard. The company recently announced the development of a 40nm dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor SoC that operates at up to 2 GHz. www.nufront.com

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Open Kernel Labs (Chicago), with origins in Australia, develops "virtualization software" for mobile phones and broadband devices. The company was founded in 2006; its OK Labs software has been deployed on more than 1.5 billion devices worldwide. www.ok-labs.com Ozmo Devices Inc. (Palo Alto, Calif.), founded in 2004 as H-Stream Wireless, develops wireless personal area network connectivity for batteryoperated devices based on Wi-Fi communications. www.ozmodevices.com

systems. www.polight.no

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Quantance Inc. (San Mateo, Calif.), founded in December 2005, developed patented several RF and DC power supply techniques as the basis of an instantaneous envelope-tracking technology known as qBoost. Designed specifically for mobile devices, qBoost provides power supply technology for envelope tracking for 3G and 4G power amplifiers, thereby reducing power consumption. www.quantance.com Quantenna Communications Inc. (Fremont, Calif.), founded in 2006, develops silicon for wireless networking. The company has developed 802.11n and 802.11ac Wi-Fi chipsets that include 4 x 4 multiple input, multiple output capability and dynamic digital beamforming. www.quantenna.com

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the goal of creating high-energy rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Seeo was established with initia funding from Khosla Ventures. www.seeo.com Skorpios Technologies Inc. (Albuquerque, N.M.) was founded in 2009 and is focused on commercializing monolithically integrated active photonics into wafer-scale standard CMOS processes. Skorpios has received venture capital from Deutsche Telekom, Ericsson, Nokia Siemens Networks, Cottonwood Technology Fund and Sun Mountain Capital. www.skorpiosinc.com Socowave Ltd. (Dublin, Ireland), founded in 2008, has connections with University College Dublin. Founded by CEO Joe Moore, Socowave offers active-panel antenna technology, which allows mobile phone operators to apply beamforming to improve cellular efficiency as basestations communicate with handsets. www.socowave.com Solido Design Automation Inc. (San Jose, Calif.) was founded in 2005 to address process variation for transistor-level designers. Solido has developed a proprietary set of algorithms. www.solidodesign.com Spin Transfer Technologies Inc. (Boston) was founded in 2007, to commercialize orthogonal spin transfer magnetoresistive random access memory, a technology originally discovered by Andrew Kent at New York University. www.spintransfer.com Stion Corp. (San Jose, Calif.) manufactures thin-film solar modules. Stion was founded in 2006 and is backed by venture capital investors, including Khosla Ventures, VentureTech Alliance, Lightspeed Venture Partners, General Catalyst Partners, and Braemar Energy Ventures. Stion also has a strategic partnership with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. www.stion.corp.

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Pelican Imaging Corp. (Mountain View, Calif.), founded in 2008, is commercializing computational array cameras for the mobile market. Pelicans array camera, essentially replacing a single image sensor with 25 devices, addresses challenges posed by conventional camera design and small pixels. www.pelicanimaging.com Pixel Qi Corp. (San Bruno, Calif.) designs liquid crystal displays that can be manufactured on conventional fabrication machinery while reducing the need for a back light. The ability to turn off the backlight and switch to a monochrome reflective mode in ambient light allows for significant power saving. The company was formed in 2008 by Mary Lou Jepson, who previously served as CTO of the One Laptop Per Child project. www.pixelqi.com poLight AS (Horten, Norway) has developed optical MEMS-actuated autofocus lenses for use in camera phones and other consumer applications. The company, founded in 2006 and formerly known as Ignis Display AS, claims its TLens products are faster and use less energy to achieve focus than traditional voice-coil motor autofocus

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RFaxis Inc. (Irvine, Calif.) was founded January 2008. The company uses BiCMOS process technology in conjunction with its own technology to create integrated RF front-end ICs for wireless standards including Bluetooth, WLAN, Zigbee, WiMax and mobile phone markets www.rfaxis.com

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Samplify Systems Inc. (Santa Clara, Calif.), founded in 2006, is a fabless mixed-signal semiconductor company with expertise compression that combines digital processing and high performance analog to create intelligent data converters and energy efficient data handling systems. www.samplify.com Seeo Inc. (Hayward, Calif.) was founded in 2007 with an exclusive license for advanced technology from
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EE Times 60 Emerging Startups

SuVolta Inc. (Los Gatos, Calif.), formed in 2005 under the name DSM Solutions Inc., has announced its PowerShrink process technology. PowerShrink is based on a deeply depleted channel (DDC) transistor that is manufactured in epitaxially grown, doped silicon on the surface of a conventional bulk CMOS wafer. www.suvolta.com Vector Fabrics BV (Eindhoven, Netherlands) is developing tools for the design and implementation of multicore, multi-threaded applications and embedded systems. Founded in 2007 the company released its first product, vfAnalyst, in May 2010. www.vectorfabrics.com Verayo Inc. (San Jose, Calif.), formed in 2005 as PUFCO, is targeting a range of security and authentication technologies based on physical, unclonable functions. These PUFs are physical aspects of a device that are readily evaluated but hard to predict or build in. As such, the physical characteristic can become the basis of a security key. The technology is based on work originally performed at MIT by Professor Srini Devadas and his team. www.verayo.com Vivante Corp. (Sunnyvale, Calif.) was founded in 2004 as GiQuila focused on the portable gaming market. The company changed its name and direction in 2007 and since then has developed a range of graphic processor cores. www.vivantecorp.com Note: The previous version of the Silicon 60, version 12.5, was published in April 2011.

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Tilera Corp. (San Jose, Calif.) was founded in 2004 to develop multicore processors and associated compilers for the networking, wireless and multimedia infrastructure markets. The company was founded by Anant Agarwal, professor of computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who serves as chief technology officer. www.tilera.com Transphorm Inc. (Goleta, Calif.) was founded in 2007 to make use of the inherent power efficiency of gallium nitride for power applications. The company is taking a systems-level approach to create a process it intends to scale beyond 600-V breakdown voltage. It is developing manufacturing facility at its Goleta location and is backed by several VC firms including Google Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. www.transphormusa.com

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Wilocity Ltd. (Caesarea, Israel), founded in March 2007 by executives and engineers from Intel's Wi-Fi Centrino group, Wilocity is developing 60-GHz multi-gigabit wireless chipsets based on the Wireless Gigabit Alliance (WiGig) specification, for both the mobile computing platform and peripheral markets. www.wilocity.com

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Vayavya Labs Pvt. Ltd. (Belgaum, Karnataka, India), founded in 2006, the company derives its name from the Sanskrit word for northwest. The ESL-oriented company focuses on providing tools to enhance the productivity of embedded system designers and programmers. Vayavya provides customers with ESL products and engineering services. www.vayavyalabs.com

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XMOS Semiconductor Ltd. (Bristol, England) is a fabless semiconductor company founded by computer scientist David May in 2006. The company has developed a range of ICs based on multiple event-driven processors. Designs are created in high-level languages, delivering hardware from a software-based design flow. www.xmos.com
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