LONDON — Artimi (Cambridge, England), formed late last year, is planning to take on some of the biggest players in the wireless chips business with a single chip device for the ultra-wideband (UWB) market.
So far the company has operated in stealth mode. Monday (June 16) said it has demonstrated the device in laboratory tests and expects to have first silicon of a fully integrated UWB chip by the end of 2003.
The company employs about 12 engineers, most of who have come from GlobespanVirata. It has raised about £300 000 ($504,200) from a group of investors called the "Cambridge Angels" and senior management. It is currently closing another seed round to raise a further £500 000 ($840,300).
"We are using a flexible design technique and favor the 'mono-band' solution followed by companies such as Xtreme Spectrum and ST Microelectronics," said Jack Lang, the company's chief executive. Lang said it would be manufactured using a 0.18 micron CMOS process.
Lang said the company is participating in the standards debate within the IEEE802.15.3 a, which is due to meet next month to choose from a dozen proposals for UWB. He said Artimi's flexible design approach means it will be able to incorporate changes if necessary to meet the final specification.
While tight-lipped about its patent pending technology, Lang said Artimi's advantage is its tight internal design and proprietary signal processing. The same device will be offered to OEMs developing very fast data rate, short-range networking, low power location and beacon applications.
The company was one of the first to be granted a test and development license for UWB transmission from the U.K.'s Radiocommunications Agency under which it can fully test the parts conforming to the U.S. Federal Communication Commission's and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute's spectral masks specifications.
The FCC has licensed UWB for use in the U.S., but European regulators are still looking into the potential interference issues and trying to agree on a common position.
