“There are two segments doing significant mixed-signal design,” Brandt says. “There are the big players making chips for wireless networking, MP3, cell phones and other mass-market products. Then there is another segment in medical imaging, sensors, process control and some other areas where what they need to do can only be done with AMS. They are adding new dimensions to how the market operates.”

Brandt says about 20% of the PDG’s projects are focused on AMS.

Pittsburgh Players in AMS

Bridge Semiconductor
With a manufacturing price point that is about one-seventh of the current industry cost for infrared imaging, Bridge is planning to bring the technology to the masses—at least those in the military, security, automotive and firefighting/emergency response markets. Its proprietary ‘Infrared Focal Plane Arrays’ use the heat radiated from objects to create an actual image of the object, enabling firefighters to see people trapped in a smoke-filled building, security systems to detect intruders and even night drivers to see low-crawling animals crossing the highway in front of them.

“We have a novel circuit concept in silicon that has allowed us to take our concept and use plain vanilla manufacturing techniques which keeps our costs low,” says Joshua Ziff, President and Chief Executive Officer of Bridge. “Right now, every fire department or police department would like to have a thermal imaging device for every firefighter or policeman, but at $10,000 each, they can’t afford it. But they can at under $1,000, which is what our price point will be,” he says. The see-through smoke market is growing at 17% per year and Ziff believes that rate could triple with the lower priced products which he expects to begin shipping in Q4 2004.

Bridge currently employs ten people, having relocated five of them to Pittsburgh. Ziff says they are actively recruiting ‘the best designers in the world,’ as part of the company’s projections for 70 employees and sales of over $100 million in the next five years.

They just closed on a $3.0 million round to further fund product development and launch. This follows earlier investments of $1.8 from CID Equity Partners, Innovation Works and angel investors, and contract research funding from the Pittsburgh Digital Greenhouse. Vice President and Bridge’s Chief Operating Officer Charles Buenzli was founder, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Neolinear (see below) and also directed research at Exxon and Texas Instruments.

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