Competition in the RF Power Amplifier (PA) space is definitely heating up. Last month, Black Sand Technologies announced the world’s first 3G CMOS based RF PA. Earlier this month, VT Silicon, announced the world’s first silicon-based 4G PA. Based out of Atlanta, GA, VT Silicon is fabless semiconductor startup which was incorporated in 2002 and initially focused primarily on military applications. In 2007, the company kicked off efforts to commercialize some of the developed technology, specifically targeting WiMax applications. At about the same time VT Silicon raised $3.3 million in Series A funding from Menlo Ventures. VT Silicon’s first chip will be the VMF2500 WiMax/WiFi Front End RFIC, for which the block diagram is shown below.

Instead of gallium arsenide (GaAs), which is traditionally used for power amplifiers, VT Silicon intends to use Silicon Germanium (SiGe) BICMOS which has a significant cost advantage over GaAs, and as such should be of interest to mobile device manufacturers. The company has developed what it refers to as Linearity Enhancement Technology (LET), which improves the linear operating range of their amplifiers, resulting in less signal distortion and yielding a more power efficient system. It is this LET technology that enables the company to use SiGe instead of GaAs while still delivering competitive performance. Further, SiGe enables VT Silicon to integrate a complex CMOS control circuit directly onto the IC, which the company refers to as Intelligent RF. This circuitry can then be utilized to continually tweak the configuration of the PA to optimize performance for lowest power consumption based on factors such as battery voltage, temperature, or the TX power level. The CMOS circuitry also enables the IC to be software configurable. All in all, the VMF2500 becomes a single chip RF PA solution, as opposed to multi-chip solutions that are comment these days on the front end. The company expects the quiescent current for chip to be less than 45mA when in low-power TX mode. Samples for strategic partners are expected to become available in the 2nd quarter of 2010, with mass production targeted the follow in the 4th quarter.

One list we definitely have come to appreciate over the years is the EETimes Emerging Startups List. Every few months the list gets updated, and it just so happens that a few days ago it was updated to version 9.0. On occasion these updates are lackluster featuring few new emerging startups, however, just like last time around, this new list contains plenty of new additions. This time around new companies accounted for almost 30 percent of the list. Once again, California did rather well claiming 30 percent of the newly added companies; however, Europe also claimed a surprising 35 percent of the list. Several of the newly added companies will be familiar to regular ChipCrunch readers, but just in case a refresher is needed, we provided links to our previous coverage of these companies where applicable. The new additions are summarized below:

• AutoESL Design Technologies Inc. (Cupertino, CA) – Is developing next generation High-Level Synthesis (HSL) technology. Current product is titled AutoPilot, and can synthesize designs written in C, C++, and SystemC.

• BlackSand Technologies Inc. (Austin, TX) – has developed the world’s first CMOS based 3F RF power amplifier. ChipCrunch coverage: 1, 2, 3
  

• Blue Wonder Communications GmbH (Dresden, Germany) – independent design house and a licensor of Long Term Evolution (LTE) Intellectual Property (IP), which is a next generation mobile standard.

• Direct2Silicon Inc. (San Jose, CA) – provides software and IP that enables direct write e-beam lithography for System-on-Chip integrated circuits (SoCs). Direct write e-beam technology requires neither optical lithography nor masks, thus ought to be cheaper for small production runs according to the company.

• Energy Micro A/S (Oslo, Norway) – is developing energy efficient microcontrollers based on modern microprocessor architectures. Current products are based on the ARM Cortex-M3 processor.

• Everspin Technologies Inc. (Chandler, Ariz.) – spinoff from Freescale Semiconductor that specializes in Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory (MRAM) and integrated magnetic sensors.

• Liquavista BV (Eindhoven, Netherlands) – is developing electronic screen technology based on the principles of Electrowetting. Electrowetting enables color displays that utilize significantly less battery power, and are currently targeted at electronic readers.

• Netronome Systems Inc. (Pittsburgh, PA) – specializes in intelligent network flow processing using highly programmable network flow processors and acceleration cards targeted at enterprise-class communications products.

• OneChip Photonics Inc. (Ottawa, Canada) – is developing and manufacturing low-cost, high-performance optical transceivers based on monolithic Photonic Integrated Circuits (PICs) in Indium Phosphide (InP) , with which the company is hoping to enable ubiquitous deployment of Fiber-to-the-Home (FTTH).

• Open Kernel Labs (Chicago, IL) – specializes in mobile phone virtualization solutions. To date, the OKL4 Microvisor has shipped in over 300 million phones worldwide.

• Ozmo Devices Inc. (Palo Alto, CA) – is developing Wi-Fi compatible communication technologies target at battery-operated devices, with the intent of delivering cost-effective wireless personal area networks (WPAN) connectivity.

• PolyIC GmbH & Co. KG (Fuerth, Germany) – is developing polymer electronic technology, in other words electrical conducting and semi conducting plastics, which the company hopes will usher in the age of ubiquitous printed electronics.

• Powervation Ltd. (Limerick, Ireland) – specializes in digital power control circuits, an earlier this year introduced the company’s inaugural PV3002 power conversion chip. ChipCrunch coverage: 1, 2

• Samplify Systems Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) – is developing mixed-signal ICs, that combine high performance analog circuits with advanced digital processing to create a new class of intelligent data converters for DSP systems, targeting the medical imagining, wireless, defense, and communications markets.

• Semprius Inc. (Durham, NC) – is developing technology that enables the printing of high-performance semiconductors on a wider range of substrates. The company’s primary focus currently is high performance concentrator photovoltaic (CPV) modules for solar power generation. ChipCrunch coverage: 1
  
• Tabula Inc. (Santa Clara, CA) – is working on software and hardware solutions that the company claims will replace current FPGA solutions and will speed up the adoption of programmable logic devices for what are traditionally ASIC based solutions.
• Tiempo SA (Grenoble, France) – is developing IPs and EDA tools that enable the design of clock-less integrated circuits. The company’s current IP includes asynchronous microcontroller cores, microprocessors, as well as communication and sensor interfaces. 
  
  

The other day I ran across an article on EETimes.com titled Which chip makers will rule in 2018? While the focus of the article is on the future, probably the most interesting piece of data that it contained was actually a table, depicted below, which showed the top 10 semiconductor supplier from 1978 to 2008 in ten year increments. It is surprising how much information can be gleamed from a simple table such as this one: rise and fall of companies, countries, results of mergers and acquisitions and so on.

Here are a few observations: For those like myself, that cannot call themselves industry veterans quite yet, it might comes as a surprise that in 1978 TI and Motorola where the two dominant companies. Noticeable as well is Intel’s 9th position in the ranking below National and Fairchild. As we all know, over the next few decades Intel would go on and climb the ranking to eventually claim the number one spot. National and Fairchild did not fare nearly as well. By the late 1970s Fairchild was very much past its glory days, and in 1979 it was acquired by Schlumberger Limited – an oil field services company. Not surprisingly, in 1987 Schlumberger sold Fairchild to National, however as can be seen from the table, by the time 1988 rolled around, the combined entity no longer made the top 10 list. The 1988 rankings show the ascend of Japanese suppliers: NEC, Toshiba, and Hitachi claimed the top three spots, respectively, and overall, Japanese companies claimed six of the top 10 spots. In 1998, the picture changed again, with Intel taking the number one spot and with Samsung’s ascend signaling the emergence of South Korea as a major player in the semiconductor field. Interestingly the table also places Infineon in the tenth spot. In actuality, the company still ought to be have been called Siemens at that point since Infineon did not spin out from Siemens until 1999.

The 2008 rankings also showed some major changes in part due to mergers and acquisitions: Renesas, a joint venture between Mitsubishi and Hitachi, joined the list. NEC, which spun out NEC Electronics in 2003, dropped off the list completely. Earlier this year though, Renesas and NEC Electronics announced plans to merge by 2010 and thus create the world’s third largest semiconductor supplier, at least on paper. Motorola and Philips, both of whom spun out their semiconductor divisions as Freescale Semiconductor and NXP Semiconductors, respectively, have failed to translate the spin-outs into sales, and as such both have dropped off the list. Hynix Semiconductor, a spin-out from Hyundai Electronic, joined Samsung as the second South Korean company on the top 10 list, continuing the ascend of Korean companies. The 2008 list also showed the emergence of fabless semiconductor companies, with Qualcomm joining the list in the 8th spot. Strictly going by name recognition and ignoring all the new ventures created through mergers and acquisitions only Intel and Toshiba have remained in the top 10 list over the last three decades. What will the next decade bring is an interesting question indeed, but we’ll have to wait till 2018 to find out.