Neolinear develops software tools for the rapid design and re-use of analog, RF and mixed-signal circuits. Its tools help design engineers eliminate the analog/RF design bottleneck and create reusable analog intellectual property (IP), resulting in a substantial reduction in time to market.

This type of design and productivity gain is critical for the consumer and communications markets where semiconductors are increasingly differentiated by their analog content. Neolinear estimates that while today, 25% of today's ICs include mixed-signal content, over the next five years, 70% will. That demand, combined with a shortage of analog designers, will increase the need for reusable design tools such as those that Neolinear develops.

Akustica
With its ‘sensory silicon,’ Akustica combines advanced analog, digital and acoustics on one chip, giving electronics devices the ability to interact more naturally and capably with the real world.

“The more portable electronics devices become—moving from the desktop to our pockets and cars, for example—the more critical it will be for them to interact with the world in a way that goes beyond digital’s capabilities,” said Dr. Kaigham (Ken) Gabriel, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Akustica. “They need an interface that’s made for the analog world we live in.”

With more and more cell phones including video recording capabilities, for example, consumers expect high-quality sound recording to be a part of that, yet don’t expect to ask their subjects to talk into the miniature mike in the phone. With Akustica’s chip onboard, they won’t have to. It will enable cell phone microphones to separate background noise from an intended voice and to record with the same quality from 20 feet away as close up.

That may seem like an extra to some, but as cell phones take on more and more information technology capabilities, the idea of having a voice-activated computer in your pocket that can distinguish between your voice and the sound of a busy street in the background has demonstrated market appeal.

Akustica is targeting cell phones, PDAs and other portable electronics device markets that are among the fastest growing markets in the world. In 2003, 500 million cell phones were sold. New-York analyst IDC expects mobile phone shipments to top 595 million in 2004 and 800 million in 2008. They also expect the number of wireless subscribers to reach 1.5 billion by the end of 2004. These high-volume markets have short cycles with new features being added seemingly every day—if you haven’t replaced your cell phone in the last six months, for example, it may seem obsolete without digital photo and video recording capabilities, let alone the latest ring tone.

As a fabless semiconductor company, meaning it designs, fabricates, and manufactures chips without its own captive manufacturing facility, Akustica has developed relationships with semiconductor companies who can provide it robust production capabilities to supply the high-volume, short-cycle markets such as cell phones. This is no small feat considering the recent uptick in the semiconductor industry which means that new, smaller players like Akustica have to vie for attention and manufacturing floor space with these global producers.

“Once you have the volume production and the relationships with these producers, you can address the smaller volume, more custom markets such as medical devices,” Gabriel says. Indeed, Akustica’s technology has already been implemented successfully in the hearing-aid device market and has applicability in the automotive market as more hands-free technology is added to cars.

Akustica was formed in 2001 when Gabriel, widely recognized as the architect of the MEMS (micro-electromechanical system) industry, and technology start-up veteran James H. Rock, partnered to commercialize acoustic MEMS technology from Carnegie Mellon University. Akustica holds the exclusive license to these patents and continues to independently develop additional technologies. They have 25 employees now and expect that number to increase to between 50-60 in the next one to two years.

Desantage
Desantage, Inc. develops automated computer-aided design (CAD) and electronic design automation (EDA) design-synthesis software tools that can reduce the amount of time it takes engineers and designers to design products by about 90%, moving from weeks to hours. Its first product, LayoutSpace, automates the placement of complex, three-dimensional components on a printed circuit board, during the design phase, a process that has been manual until now.

To date, Desantage has raised $1.7 million in seed capital from Innovation Works and venture fund Spencer Trask's early-stage investment division which has financed, among other things, Edison’s light bulb.

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