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Technology Start-Up Event

March 17, 2022 @ 12:00 pm - 7:00 pm

All of us have experienced coming together as a new team and going through the emotional roller coaster of “forming”, “storming and norming” and then finally and thankfully “performing.” Well deep tech semiconductor start-ups follow the same path, which gave us the idea to create a series of events that focus on a start-ups development.

The first of these events organized by Silicon Catalyst UK and NMI is focused on the “Forming semiconductor start-ups” stage and its objective is to share the hard earned knowledge of those semiconductor start-up founders that have gone before. Both the success stories and the horror stories.

You will hear from industry luminaries like Phil O’Donovan, co-Founder of CSR plc and Jerry Lorraine, a serial entrepreneur that travelled the Artimi, Staccato and Veebeam rollercoaster. You will learn from 10 UK semiconductor start-up founders how bad things happen to good people, the importance of relentlessly repeatable scalable processes, the need for the best A++ team and work out how much money you will need and where to get it.

Alongside Silicon Catalyst, NMI is creating a community for innovation and development. Where startups and innovators can gather to share ideas, learn from each other and meet with industry and its leaders, along with providing events and online activities. By connecting industry to innovation we feel we can make a difference to everyone and build a community for the future.

Phil O’Donovan

CSR plc

Phil O’Donovan, as co-founder and Managing Director, helped grow Cambridge-based CSR plc from a start-up of nine into a highly successful FTSE 250 listed fabless semiconductor company employing, in 2015, more than 2,000 people in 23 locations.

Within four years from 1999, CSR became the Bluetooth market leader and supplier of chips to hundreds of global high-volume consumer product manufacturers. By 2012, CSR had achieved annual revenue of $1billion and, by 2015, had shipped close to 4billion chips. CSR was acquired by US company Qualcomm in September 2015 for $2.5billion.

Phil is an Engineer and a Cambridge-based mentor, coach and investor in technology start-ups where he takes a non-executive director or chairman role. He is also a speaker on entrepreneurial topics at universities and business schools and an advisor to organisations wishing to commercialise their IP.

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/phil-o-donovan

Sean Redmond

Silicon Catalyst

Sean Redmond is the UK Managing Partner for Silicon Catalyst, the world's only semiconductor start-up accelerator which has incubated 73 start-ups since it was founded in Silicon Valley in 2015. He has 37 years of experience in the semiconductor and software industries.

Starting his career as a chip designer, he led two market leading design teams. Firstly in digital stereo sound for television and then the first embedded mobile phone chip for Ericsson with VLSI technology. Sean was VP Europe for Verisity Design Inc, taking them from a standing start to over 160 customer sites throughout Europe in 5 years. He instigated and led Verisity’s strategic partnership with ARM, fueling its meteoric rise and successful IPO. Following their acquisition by Cadence, Sean became VP & GM of Cadence EMEA, doubling its business in 3 years. As VP WW Sales and Marketing for ARC, he helped turn its cash flow positive, leading to the eventual sale to Synopsys. In 2010 he founded and has been the CEO of Vertizan Limited, the developer of the Vitaq AI-driven Test Automation tool suite. Sean is Chair of Cascoda, a UK based semiconductor and ARM based industrial IoT module company. He has recently worked closely with the UK government on industrial digital strategy, co-chairing the ElecTech council and being a core member of the industrial digital leadership team. Sean has a BSc(hons), MSc EE from Kings College, London and MBA from Henley Management College.

Jerry Loraine

Swindon Silicon Systems

Jerry is Managing Director of Swindon Silicon Systems Ltd, a fabless semiconductor company, that is a wholly owned subsidiary of Sensata Technologies.

Prior to Swindon Silicon, he held executive roles at Veebeam, Staccato Communications, Artimi, SiGe Semiconductor (acquired by Skyworks) and Micro Linear Corporation (acquired by RFMD/Qorvo).

Presentation: A rollercoaster journey through Ultra-Wideband (UWB) start-ups

A personal view of a rollercoaster journey through Ultra-Wideband (UWB) start-ups. It started at a mature Artimi Ltd in Cambridge, it led to merger with Staccato Communications and then finally a pivot to Veebeam which closed in 2014. The highs of working with great teams doing amazing things of which they should be proud, the lows of business difficulties and where it took me will be presented.

Steve Drew

NMI Electronic Systems

Steve has over 30 years of semiconductor, electronics and design industry experience. Starting his career at Avnet, he became one of their youngest product managers – looking after Xilinx for the UK.

Steve subsequently worked at a number of niche component distributors, promoting and selling , technical component solutions, ranging from video codecs, power products and FPGAs, through to connectivity and display solutions. FPGA’s became his thing in the 1990’s and Steve worked with all the FPGA manufacturers except Altera. Moving on from component distribution Steve has worked at component kitting and PCB assembly companies, and having worked for large multinational companies and smaller privately owned businesses, has given Steve a wide view of the component market place and the challenges faced by companies, and having run his own manufacturing consultancy since 2020 has given him an understanding of the small business sector.

Steve loves the electronics industry and technology in general, is passionate about UK manufacturing and how we can build more here instead of losing it to offshore competition, is a champion of startup’s and innovation. And if you want an opinion on something, just ask him

Bruno Johnson

Cascoda

Bruno is an expert in the conceptualization, design and development of standard products for the electronics industry. He began his career on the graduate program of Hitachi Europe, where he participated in the development of system-on-chip DAB radio receivers.

His subsequent experience at Acapella and Semtech covers positions of responsibility in business units involved in wireless communications, human input devices and sensing. Bruno holds a BEng from the University of Sussex, an MSc in Microelectronics from the University of Southampton, and an MBA from Imperial College Business School.

Presentation: The invention of a new type of radio demodulator for low power wireless

This presentation outlines the thinking behind the invention and patenting of a new type of radio demodulator for low power wireless, that has led to a doubling of range of IEEE802.15.4 radio transceivers for use in Thread and Zigbee, with no penalty in power consumption.

Phillip Burr

Arm

Phil Burr is Senior Director, Strategic Programmes and is responsible for developing commercial programs to make it easy to access Arm technology. Phil’s experience, spanning more than 20 years, covers product strategy, product marketing, business development...

He’s worked at Director and VP Design & Operations levels at major UK start-ups Element14 and Icera, as VP Mobile at NVIDIA Corporation, and he spent 3 years as COO of Wave Optics Limited, an AR hardware tech start-up based in Oxford.

Presentation: Operations for prospective semiconductor start-up execs

Alongside the need to develop defensible IP, gain willing investors and a customer base, any ambitious semiconductor start-up needs to be sure that it can demonstrate and then follow through on the delivery of its products.

In-volume product delivery may seem both “scary and dull” at the same time, but with an understanding of the simple goals of Silicon Operations, and how to prioritise them, it’s possible to learn to love this part of the business. That’s the journey I went on via three successful start-ups, and is the topic of this talk.

Peter Hughes

Silicon Catalyst Analyst

Pete runs a technology consultancy business, as well as being a Silicon Catalyst advisor. His industry background is fairly unusual, moving from wafer fabrication (device physics and process modelling) through to analogue IC design and physical chip delivery at STMicro.

...and product management, mainly in IP licensing businesses in the UK and in Asia. Phil even had a stint founding a startup! Phil holds an MEng as well as a BEng degree in electronics, communications and computer systems engineering.

Presentation: Introduction to ARM flexible access

Some of the most innovative and world-changing ideas come from companies only just starting out on their journey. To turn these ideas in to reality startups need to build investor confidence to secure funding, they need to innovate quickly and they need to minimize costs along the way. This session will share Arm’s experience of the silicon startup’s journey and provide details of how Arm can help a startup along their journey. The presentation will include details of Arm Flexible Access for Startups which gives free access and support to over 80 Arm products and tools, along with examples of how it is helping startups turn their world-changing ideas in to reality.

Dr Owen Metters

Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE)

Dr Owen Metters is an Investment Manager at Williams Advanced Engineering (WAE). His core focus is sourcing and evaluating new investment opportunities for the Foresight Williams Funds, which are operated as a joint venture between WAE and Foresight Group.

These VCT and EIS funds invest in UK-based deep technology businesses with disruptive and defensible IP and support investee companies by facilitating access to WAE’s engineering team and customer network.
Since inception the Foresight Williams Funds have invested £48m into 27 companies operating across a range of sectors.

Prior to joining WAE, Owen worked at Oxford University Innovation, the technology transfer organisation for the University of Oxford. Here he supported academics in the commercialisation of University IP leading to the formation of several successful spin-out companies which have gone on to raise over £20m of venture capital funding.

Owen holds a PhD in Inorganic and Materials Chemistry from the University of Bristol and has had his research published in several high-profile academic journals.

Presentation: Seed/Series A Investing in Semiconductor Technologies (Foresight Williams Technology Funds)

In the last two years the Foresight Williams Technology Funds (FWT) has invested in six cutting edge technology businesses addressing pain points in both the design and fabrication of semiconductor devices. The majority of our other 21 portfolio companies leverage semiconductor devices in their products in some shape or form. By providing insights into our investment strategy, I will share my thoughts on how start-ups can prepare for raising Seed/Series A funding from investors such as FWT.

Dr Gary Spittle

Sonical

Dr Gary Spittle is the CEO of Sonical. He was previously the CEO of Audicus Consulting, specialising in technology strategy and development services for ear worn product companies. He has also held senior positions at Knowles, Dolby and CSR. He has personally developed audio products that have been used and experienced by millions of people all over the world.

Presentation: The complete solution for Headphone 3.0

Sonical has designed and created a new platform for ear worn devices. This is built on the world's first ear computer with dedicated operating system. Our complete technology stack is enabling manufacturers of headphones, headset, hearing aids and other hearable devices to escape the red ocean. This allows the industry to move to the next phase of innovation using apps for the ear.

Patrick Camilleri

Crypto Quantique

Patrick is the co-founder of Crypto Quantique and is currently heading the Research and Innovation group. He has a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Magdeburg, Germany. He also has a BEng in Electrical Engineering from the University of Malta. He worked at Philips Semiconductors Zurich where he designed display driver chips for mobile phones.

Patrick also did a Postdoc at the University of Manchester in the group of Prof. Steve Furber where he did cutting-edge research on massively parallel computer systems.

Presentation: Quantum Driven Hardware Root of Trust

According to Cisco there will be 500 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2030. Despite this huge potential, growth is hampered by user fears of inadequate security. Our patent-protected Quantum-Driven ID (QDID) technology produces truly random cryptographic keys to deliver the strongest, end-to-end, cost-effective IoT security to protect devices from malicious cyber security attacks. This, together with our unique Key Provisioning Architecture delivers a step-change in cybersecurity for the generation, distribution, and certification of cryptographic keys used by IoT devices and the cloud.

Malcolm Penn

Future Horizons

Malcolm Penn is the founder and CEO of Future Horizons, the premier global Semiconductor industry watcher with over 260 years’ experience of the industry. Founded in 1989, Future Horizons prides itself on the integrity of its work and the rigor and discipline employed in everything it does, not least of which is its commitment to accurate and usable information.

Mr Penn has over 55 years of semiconductor and electronics industry experience covering all aspects of the industry, including new business development, management, manufacturing, marketing, and design.

Prior to establishing Future Horizons, Mr Penn was Vice President and Director of European Operations for Gartner Dataquest, responsible for establishing its European research operations. Previously he was Manager of Component Engineering for ITT Europe and prior to that held various operations and marketing management positions with the worldwide ITT Semiconductor Group.

Mr Penn studied Electronics Engineering at London’s Southbank University in 1962, graduating with an honors degree in 1966 during which time he worked his way through college as a professional rock and R&B musician.

Presentation: Testing your value proposition

So you have a brilliant idea and the world’s going to beat a path to your door, fame and fortune … what could possibly go wrong? Everything! Most startups fail not because they had bad technology or poor products but through poor marketing. Avoid this trap and the world really could be your oyster.

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Technology Start-Up Event

Phil O’Donovan

Sean Redmond

Jerry Loraine

Steve Drew

Bruno Johnson

Phillip Burr

Peter Hughes

Dr Owen Metters

Dr Gary Spittle

Patrick Camilleri

Malcolm Penn

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