Consumer goods are getting smaller but their functionality is growing at a rapid rate. As a result, those in the business of producing the chips that drive them are under increasing pressure to miniaturise their products. So often in the past this has been achieved by integrating functions into silicon. For timing and frequency references, which depend on quartz crystals, this has not been an option. But Ian Macbeth and his co-founders Dr Adrian Bratt, Dr Stephen Harold and Jon Goldfinch have developed an innovative alternative to quartz using standard silicon. Having previously founded a semiconductor company, Ian is no stranger to the challenges and rewards of start-ups. Here, he explains what led him and the team towards establishing eoSemi and the factors that make a start-up successful and worthy of the personal effort involved.
eoSemi is one of many semi-conductor chip start-ups but the particular type of chip that we've developed is very specific. Inside just about anything electronic you can think of, there are quartz crystals. These crystals provide the heartbeat for the system. However, the costs, physical size and footprint associated with them has become a bit of a headache to many manufacturers of very compact systems such as mobile handsets. We replace these quartz crystals with a solution built using the same silicon that everything else in the system in made of and effectively remove them from the bill of materials. That's a very exciting proposition to the manufacturers of these systems because it cuts costs and reduces size - and size is everything. It all boils down to doing a relatively simple function in a tiny piece of silicon.
We're different from the market incumbents because we're smaller and cheaper than quartz crystals. We can solve a problem that quartz can't, which is integration. In terms of our competition, we have a very particular approach to the way we do this which stems from our backgrounds and experience in programmable analogue circuits. The result is a timing device that is fully calibrated at the time of manufacture, works as a direct replacement to quartz crystals and does not demand any modification to other components in the system.
We're also a different proposition from an investor's point of view. We're a small team and don't require large investment in complex digital circuitry or software interfacing. That sets us apart from other semi-conductor companies which have largely priced themselves out of the venture capital market.
We have two revenue streams. The first is through sub-contracting the manufacture, test and packaging of the chip and supplying it through distribution channels. The second model sits parallel to that. We work with semi-conductor chip companies and partners who supply chips to end customers such as mobile handset manufacturers as part of their own system chip solution
The idea derived from our backgrounds. The four founders started out without really knowing what we wanted to do but we knew we had a collective capability and value amongst ourselves. We all came from a company called Anadigm which specialised in programmable analogue systems. We started thinking about ways of replacing quartz crystals when we became aware of a growing demand for this kind of solution. Having developed some very specific technology to address the challenge in a unique way, we also spoke to a lot of people in the space who helped us decide how best to focus our ideas commercially.
Since starting in 2006 we've seen demand for our type of product increase on a yearly basis. There is currently real commercial pressure to solve this problem of the space and cost restraints of quartz crystals and we are entering the market at the right time. It's partly good timing combined with a bit of luck.
Not really at all. It's a useful thing to do at some point as branding is a helpful peg to hang your technology on. But where some very well-known brands, such as Intel, have focused on branding, it's been for the end-consumer. We're not targeting that space. We're targeting B2B deals so for us it's far more important to build good relationships.
One challenge that can be invisible to investors and the outside world is just how hard it is to pull a business together in the first place on your own budget. All the founders had bills to pay and families to support so getting through that pre-funding stage is tough.
More recently we've faced challenges in meeting tight schedules we set ourselves. Then there are the difficulties involved in hiring top execs to complement the existing team which has been a very specific challenge we've had recently.
It was the prototype we built in 2009, before we received any funding. To see a chip come back and deliver a performance that most people didn't believe was possible was very gratifying for us and very significant in energising us to carry on.
Be decisive. Making a decision is always better than delaying too long while trying to make the right one. However, I'm not saying I've succeeded in putting that into practice yet!
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Nesta Operating Company, a company limited by guarantee registered in England and Wales with company number 7706036 and charity number 1144091. Registered as a charity in Scotland number SC042833.
www.eosemi.com
