Uhnder: Digital Radar Chips


Radar used to be slow, clunky, and expensive. That's changing quickly as tech companies begin bringing single-chip or single-package solutions to market, setting the stage for a price/performance battle in markets ranging from automotive to robotics. Uhnder, an Austin, Texas-based startup, is the first to roll out a single-chip radar solution that it claims is roughly 100X less expensive tha... » read more

March’19 Startup Funding: Money Springs Forth


Another month, another couple of billion-dollar rounds. Singapore-based Grab raised nearly $1.5 billion from the SoftBank Vision Fund, bringing its total private funding to more than $4.5 billion and valuing the company at around $14 billion. Grab has acquired Uber’s ride-hailing business in Southeast Asia and now competes chiefly with Go-Jek of Indonesia in Thailand and other emerging mar... » read more

Rogue Valley Microdevices: MEMS Foundry


Venturing into the MEMS manufacturing market is a shaky proposition. The investment is high, the returns are questionable, and the competition can be fierce. Rogue Valley Microdevices is one of a handful of pure-play MEMS foundries in the United States, a difficult market divided into two distinct parts. One on side are a handful of higher-margin new technologies, such as piezoelectric micro... » read more

February ’19 Startup Funding: Big Cash Keeps Rolling In


Sixteen startups received private funding rounds of $100 million and up during February, including three that took in 10-figure rounds. Those 16 companies raised more than $8 billion in total. The SoftBank Vision Fund invested $1.5 billion in China's Chehaoduo, an online car trading group that includes Guazi.com, a used-car trading platform, and Maodou.com, which retails new sedans through d... » read more

January ’19 Startup Funding: $100M+ Rounds Abound


Sixteen companies received private funding rounds of $100 million or more during the month of January, with two privately held companies, Infor and Verily Life Sciences, taking in rounds of $1.5 billion and $1 billion, respectively. The market segments represented in the January rounds were varied. Multiple companies using artificial intelligence technology in their offerings and cloud-based... » read more

December ’18 Startup Funding: Big Rounds As 2018 Ends


During the month of December, 16 startups had private funding rounds of $100 million and up, with half of them in the mobility area. Those 16 rounds totaled $3.2 billion as the year concluded. Before the holidays, the SoftBank Vision Fund invested $500 million in Cambridge Mobile Telematics, provider of the DriveWell platform used by insurers, vehicle fleets, wireless carriers, and others to... » read more

Kumu Networks: Full Duplex on One Channel


Kumu Networks is in an enviable position fitting today’s requirements for radio-frequency system designs. The Sunnyvale, Calif., startup, incorporated in 2011 and coming together the following year, has developed self-interference cancellation technology, enabling radios to send and receive signals at the same time on the same channel or on an adjacent channel. This full-duplex technology has... » read more

A New Approach to Metrology


The startup Active Layer Parametrics Inc.'s ALPro 50 metrology tool offers “depth profiling of electrical properties at atomic-level resolution” —and automated processing with direct data transfer. The continuing miniaturization of microchips and nanochips has propelled the use of atomic-layer deposition and atomic-layer etch processes in semiconductor manufacturing. With miniaturization... » read more

November ’18 Startup Funding: Big Deals Dominate


A dozen tech startups involved in mobility, software, cybersecurity, robotics and smart payment terminals each raised $100 million or more in November. Big deals in automation, transportation sharing That $100 million figure came most often from SoftBank’s Vision Fund, a Japan-based fund that is also backed by big investors such as Apple, Abu Dhabi’s government, and famously the Kingdom... » read more

Training a Neural Network to Fall


Who knew falling was so complicated? “I don’t want to work on a fall detection system ever again,” said MbientLab CEO Laura Kassovic in front of an ARMTech Con audience. The audience laughed as she flashed a picture of what could now be a better approach—the Apple Watch Series 4, which had recently been announced. “The Apple 4 has the fall detection sensor built in. It’s probably... » read more

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