Chip firm gets £320k injection to boost technology

Published on Friday 15 June 2007 11:53

BRAVEHEART, the Scottish investment group, has given a second round of funding to Edinburgh-based semiconductor firm Spiral Gateway, whose chip products will help prolong battery life in digital gadgets.

Braveheart said the additional investment of 320,000 from its Alpha EIS Fund would enable Spiral to recruit staff and further develop its technology.

That is expected to lead to Spiral - an Edinburgh University spin-out, counting on another "substantial" round of funding early next year.

Spiral's microchips are geared towards imaging and audio uses in digital devices, and are based on a revolutionary processing architecture called Reconfigurable Instruction Cell Array (RICA) technology, which was developed at the university.

RICA allows a range of applications to be run on any one device "in a highly optimised fashion", with modifications or new functions easily added.

Matthew Lawrenson, a co-founder and chief executive at Spiral, said the group's first chips, which are currently the focus of its initial commercial development, would be aimed at imaging uses such as video in the likes of camera phones and other devices.

"This new architecture is effectively very high-performance, while at the same time being very low on power consumption," said Mr Lawrenson.

Spiral's first customer - as yet unnamed - to licence a RICA-based multi-application product signed an end-user agreement in February.

The latest round of investment from Perth-based Braveheart's 2.5 million Alpha Fund - which also includes Bank of Scotland Corporate, NESTA and Scottish Enterprise, as well as some of its own clients - takes the total investment in Spiral to around 700,000 so far.

Mr Lawrenson declined to disclose exact details of what the company was looking at in terms of additional staff, or the size of any future funding. However, he noted that any further cash would be greater than what had already been received.

According to Spiral, which was established in 2004, RICA represents a major opportunity for manufacturers of portable appliances, such as phone handsets, cameras and mobile multimedia devices, to increase functionality and flexibility, while reducing cost.

"Spiral Gateway is in early negotiations with major corporates in the mobile and consumer sectors, with a view to testing the technology in an industrial setting," Mr Lawrenson said.

Braveheart chief executive Geoffrey Thomson said: "As technology evolves, so has the pressure on everyday devices to keep up with the pace of change.

"The increase in processing performance required by new devices is prolific. However, consumers won't accept degradation in battery life. To meet these demands, new processing architectures are needed.

He added: "Spiral Gateway's RICA technology represents an important commercial opportunity for manufacturers to increase functionality and flexibility, whilst reducing project risks and costs."