The BritChips Podcast

How Tom Atkins came to juggle a career on the catwalk with leadership of a startup is one of the stranger stories I have heard from a tech entrepreneur and merits a future full-fat podcast. But for now I’ll let Tom do all the talking in this second ‘Talking Heads’ episode of The BritChips Podcast. Could Vulkos be a solution to the shortage of chip design skills in the UK? Watch the clip and see wh...

Now, who wants a car that you can only drive in daylight hours? Or to put in another way, would you not want a car that drives as safely at night as it does during the day? Glasgow-based imaging technology startup Metahelios has developed next-generation pixel technology based on metasurfaces which can replace the traditional red/blue/green filter arrays that image sensors use to ‘see’ in colour....

“What’s the dream?” I asked Yang Li, cofounder and COO of AI code generator startup Cosine. “We want to be ten-times bigger than Deep Mind,” came the response. Of course you do, I thought to myself - and you might too. But can I encourage you to watch/listen to the full 30-ish minute episode of The BritChips Podcast: Cosine - A New Angle on Sovereign AI before making up your mind. You see, the mar...

Welcome to the first episode of Talking Heads, a new BritChips series of short-form videos featuring people who are helping to support UK semiconductor startups. My first ‘Talking Head’ is Mark Isaacs , who leads HarwellXPS , the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s national facility for photoelectron spectroscopy, based at the government’s Harwell research campus. This world-class...

I first spoke to Chipletti cofounders Kauser Johar and Catriona Wright in The BritChips Podcast ‘ Chipletti’s Big Stack’ in June last year. Chipletti, you may recall, was one of the startups selected to participate in the third cohort of the government-sponsored ChipStart incubator, managed by Silicon Catalyst UK. At that time they were hard at work developing high-speed cache memory chiplets (the...

In this latest episode of The BritChips Podcast, Rayd Technologies cofounder and CEO Kilian Stenning explains how he, co-CTOs Riccardo Sapienza (Professor of Physics at Imperial) and Kirsten Moselund (Head of Laboratory at PSI Paul Scherrer Institut) and CSO Jack Gartside (Associate Professor of Physics at Imperial) are leading pioneering work on photonic semiconductor technology and novel algorit...

In this episode, Yasir Noori shares his entrepreneurial journey from quantum computing research to founding Deep Fabrication, a startup developing AI tools to predict defects in semiconductor manufacturing. Discover how AI can transform chip fabrication processes, reduce costs, and accelerate innovation in the industry. Key Topics * The evolution from quantum computing to semiconductor fabrication...

In this episode, industry veteran James Lewis, now CEO and co-founder of RED Semiconductor, shares his extensive journey through the semiconductor industry, highlighting his current work on microprocessors optimized for AI at the edge. Discover how his team is pushing the boundaries with innovative architectures tailored for complex data processing, cryptography, and AI inference to detect minute...

Unlocking the Future of Computing: The Rise of Photonics with Dr. Nick New Explore the journey of Optalysys from fundamental optical technologies to cutting-edge photonic computing solutions transforming encryption, AI, and data processing. Discover how UK-based innovation is positioning itself on the global stage amid massive funding and technological advances. In this episode: * Dr. Nick New’s b...

In this in-depth interview, Mark Lippett, CEO of XMOS, shares his journey from engineer to industry leader, exploring the evolution of embedded systems, AI integration, and the future of semiconductor innovation. Discover how XMOS is shaping the next generation of low-latency, multifunctional chips and the strategic vision to become the go-to platform for embedded system design. Key topics * XMOS’...

In this insightful (and many would say provocative and controversial) interview, Rodolfo Rosini, cofounder and CEO of Vaire, discusses the challenges and opportunities in European semiconductor startups, the concept of reversible computing as the basis of Vaire’s technology, and the strategic importance of scale and market dynamics in hardware innovation. You may well need a stiff drink after list...

In this episode of The BritChips Podcast, Peter Claydon, Founder and CEO of Bristol-based semiconductor startup RANsemi, shares insights into the wireless communications industry, the evolution of radio access network chips, and the strategic moves behind RANsemi's market positioning and future growth plans. Key topics * Radio access networks and their role in 5G * RANsemi’s market positioning and...

In this episode of The BritChips Podcast, Alexander Montgomerie-Corcoran discusses Heronic Technologies ’ innovative approach to automating the design of bespoke AI hardware, the journey of entrepreneurship, and the importance of collaboration and research. Alex shares insights into their target market in broadcast and pro AV, their AI-based video upscaling technology, and the challenges of fundin...

We kick off the now video-enhanced third series of BritChips with a Newsflash from Shahida Imani, cofounder and CEO of Edinburgh-based imaging sensor startup Singular Photonics. Singular Photonics recently announced the first commercial integration of its SPAD (single photon avalanche diode)-based image sensor technology in the inVia™ confocal Raman microscope developed by Gloucestershire-headquar...

In this 11-minute BritChips Newsflash, Martin returns to the BritChips studio to explain the significance of this milestone, the transition from FPGA to silicon, and the implications for customer engagement and future applications in power optimization and data centres. Key takeaways * weeteq is a Glasgow-based startup focused on power and control system optimization. * The Ultra Edge chip is a si...

The final BritChips podcast for 2025 is both special and different. It’s special is because my guest is a tech pioneer who would get my vote were there to be an election for the role of UK semiconductor industry National Treasure. He’s Royal Society fellow, David May, the architect who led the development of the transputer, the first microprocessor designed for parallel computing. He’s also the cr...

Ed French reckons that Apitronix has developed the world’s most powerful real-time processor with 220 RISC-V cores. But that’s a mere fraction of the number that he believes their novel architecture can scale to! As I see it, the achievement is not whether the Apitronix chip, called Cerebellum, is indeed ‘the world’s most powerful real-time processor’ - even though it makes a great website headlin...

Ed French reckons that Apitronix has developed the world’s most powerful real-time processor - one with with 220 RISC-V cores. But that’s a mere fraction of the number that their novel architecture can scale to! In this BritChips podcast, Ed - who describes himself as an incurable engineer - chats about the various startups he’s founded and invested in over the past thirty years before he teamed u...

If you are not in the semiconductor industry, you may think that the ‘von Neumann bottleneck’ has something to do with the shape of a German beer bottle. On the other hand if you are in the semiconductor industry, you will know that the von Neumann bottleneck is basically what you get when computer memory can’t feed data fast enough to the processor. It’s more colloquially known as the ‘memory wal...

“Accelerators and incubators get you to a certain level. But you’re down here and you need to get up there, and you have to cross this chasm in between.” This is how Dr. Mirella Koleva, Cofounder and CEO of quantum photonic software design startup, Quantopticon, describes the conundrum facing many entrepreneurs after they have participated in startup support programmes. In fact, Mirella had partic...

So I channelled the spirit of the late, great ‘Mrs Merton’ in her interview with the lovely Debbie McGee, to ask UK semiconductor industry veteran Haydn Povey what it was about the billions of dollars lost due to hacking that made him think that the world has a problem with cybersecurity. And he’s the man to ask, having spent the majority of his 30-year career in the UK semiconductor industry help...

After nearly 30 years in the UK semiconductor industry, Haydn Povey decided to retire. Two days later he cofounded his second cybersecurity semiconductor startup, SCI Semiconductor, where he is now CEO. In this BritChips podcast, Haydn gives a first-person perspective on the challenges facing the global semiconductor industry helping develop secure microchips capable of withstanding ever more devi...

UK semiconductor startup Chipletti has just announced that they had been awarded a grant from Innovate UK for a new collaborative project with Imec, one of the world’s leading semiconductor research institutes. In this 5-minute video, Chipletti Cofounder, Catriona Wright, explains how the project came about and the potential significance for Chipletti. This is a public episode. If you would like t...

In this two-minute video clip, Mark expounds on funding your startup, the role of incubators and accelerators, what makes a good founder, and working with a potential customer. Once you’ve watched the clip, you can listen to the full BritChips audio podcast, Switching Light with Light , on Substack or by searching for ‘BritChips’ on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. All BritChips video clips are also av...

Mark Rushworth was introduced to PhD research scientist Mike Pearcey through a family connection. As Mark describes it, ‘Mike had an idea - a really, really clever idea’ to develop an all-optical computer processor. Using his own experience as the founder of a medtech startup, coupled with many years experience in commercial roles in blue chip multinational companies, Mark went into business with...