We’ve been writing a lot about startup companies as of late, so it is about time that we take a look at the state of venture capital fundraising and venture-backed exits activity. Today, the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) released their report for the first quarter of 2008.  In short, the findings show that Q1 of 2008 saw a 31% decrease in fundraising as compared to the same period in 2007. A possible reason for the slowdown might be that many of the top firms raised significant capital over the last few years. Particular low for the first quarter was the number of new funds as compared to follow-on funds, yielding a follow-on to new fund ratio close to 10, whereas Q1 2007 came in at about 3. The NVCA also reported a gloomy picture with respect to venture-backed exits for the first quarter of 2008 earlier this month, with IPOs at the lowest volume level since 2003, and acquisitions at the lowest level in about a decade. The Life Sciences sector dominated the IPO activity with four exits, while information technology came in a distant second with only one. Needless to say, no semiconductor IPO exits occurred during this period. The merger and acquisition side of things saw a total of 56 deals, with computer software and internet specific deals accounting for close to half of these. There were four deals listed in the semiconductor/other electronics category, however the actual companies were not disclosed. As expected, the lackluster start to the year is blamed on the uncertain economic climate in the U.S. Overall, these results so far mostly agree with the NVCA predictions for 2008 which we discussed here.

We wrote about Montalvo about a couple months, at which point the company raised a total of $73 million in funding and we were looking forward for it to emerge from stealth-mode and reveal more information about their upcoming low-power x86 processor. A couple of patent applications that we ran across gave us a small glimpse about what the company might be up to but nothing substantial. Now it seems, that there is a possibility that we may never find out, for VentureBeat.com is reporting that Montalvo Systems is very close to running out of money and possibly shutting down altogether. According to their post, the company has grown to over 300 people between Santa Clara and India, and as such began burning through the raised money at a very fast rate. One thing is for certain, developing an x86 chip be it lower-power or even something less complicated that the latest Intel and AMD offerings is not an simple matter. It requires plenty of time and as such money as well, both of which many startups and established companies often times underestimate. VentureBeat.com found that the Montalvo has been shopping around for an additional $100 million but has so far come up empty handed. There have not been any updates or announcements on Montalvo’s website since the last time we checked it, so no final conclusions can be made. However, should things not work out for Montalvo, those not happy with the regular x86 providers have another alternative to fall back onto, namely Centaur Technology. While not exactly a startup, Centaur has been operating a small team out of Austin, TX as an independent subsidiary of VIA over the last few years and has just recently revealed information about the upcoming low-power Isaiah architecture.

When considering the consumer handheld market, one might not usually think of it as a segment that might be well served by a programmable device, such as a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). One reason being that FPGAs are usually produced using processes that are about a couple of generations behind the leading edge. This in turn makes these chips large and expensive, and thus not very suitable for markets were margins are razor thin. However, assuming that this problem can be overcome, suddenly FPGAs become a viable option, especially for applications that might require frequent upgrades due to ever changing standards. Enter SiliconBlue Technologies, a Sunnyvale, California based startup which claims to be the first company that has managed to combine non-volatile memory (NVM) and static RAM (SRAM) at the 65nm process node on a single chip. Unlike purely SRAM based FPGAs that require an external PROM to store the programming bit-stream, and have a configuration penalty, the SiliconBlue iCE family of devices can be turned on instantly. Additionally, since no bit-stream programming is necessary, there is also no danger of bit-stream snooping during the configuration process.  On the other hand, compared to purely NVM based devices, the iCE family is significantly smaller due to smaller SRAM geometries.

The current iCE 65nm family consists for four devices: iCE65L02, iCE65L04, iCE65L08, and iCE65L16, which contain from 1,792 to 15,260 logic cells. The current for the iCE chip family ranges from 25 to 250-uA at 32-KHz, and from 5 to 40-mA at 32MHz. The BGA packages for these devices range from 3x4 to 12x12 mm. Programming is performed in a similar manner to SRAM based FPGAs. The SiliconBlue chips are also available in DiCE packages to allow vendors to combine them with existing chips through multi-chip system-in-package (SiP) technology. Samples are available now and SiliconBlue also offers an iCEMAN evaluation board that features the iCE65L04 and iCECUBE development software.

The combination of NVM and SRAM definitely seems appealing, as well as the low-power consumption and package size. However, the FPGA space is a tough business and it is hard to tell whether SiliconBlue will flourish or fold. Many companies including Quicksilver, Adaptive Silicon, PlusLogic, and Chameleon, just to name a few, have tried taking on the industry big boys Altera and Xilinx, and have either failed or been absorbed. In SiliconBlue’s defense, the fact that company has been able to combine NVM and SRAM on a standard low-power CMOS process in 65nm, and claims to have a solid roadmap towards 45nm, might just give it the edge to stay ahead of the competition.