The BritChips Podcast

Analog design engineer Aravind Venugopolan had been trying hard to commercialise his post-doctoral research at Edinburgh University where he was developing new applications for single-photon avalanche diodes (SPADs). But with little success. A fortuitous encounter with Shahida Imani, the commercially-minded former CEO at laser developer startup Chromacity, led Aravind to invite her to lead the spi...

“I probably would have appreciated knowing that a little bit earlier in the journey”. What Martin MacDonald would have appreciated knowing a little bit earlier was how difficult it was going to be to raise serious money (as he put it) for weeteq, the Glasgow-based microcontroller design startup for which he is COO. Now, Martin did not come into weeteq blind. He had previously spent time as a mento...

When I asked Tanya Mangoma, founder and CEO of in-memory computing startup, HyperCIM, what she would do differently if she had the chance to do it all over again, she simply replied, “Cry less!” Tanya had shed a lot of tears over her two previous startup attempts. But even though the going was (and still is) tough with HyperCIM, she has received a lot of support from the UK government-sponsored Ch...

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit anttheantidote.substack.com

There can be fewer galling experiences for a tech entrepreneur than when your customers tell you that your technology is so key to their products that they have decided to develop their own IP in house, so thank you very much and cheerio! This, as you can imagine, was a pivotal moment for self-styled photonics visionary and entrepreneur, Josh Silverstone. Josh had put heart and soul into his photo...

Imagine you are the founder of a startup that has created a software platform to design photonic chips. So how do you check it does the job? Obviously, you design a photonic chip using the platform and see if it turns out OK. What could be simpler? Quite a lot, actually, as Dr James Lee was to find out. James is a cofounder and CEO of integrated photonics design startup, Wave Photonics. Wave Photo...

Steinn Gustafsson started his tech industry career in Norway back in 1992 as a part-time Technical Sales Engineer with Hewlett-Packard, before moving to the UK to pursue a degree in electronic engineering and embarking on a career in the semiconductor industry. Over the following ten years, he took on various engineering roles at different companies, including a 3-year stint at electronic design a...

I don't know how many of you are old enough to remember the 1960s science fiction movie Fantastic Voyage. In the movie, a submarine and its crew are shrunk to microscopic size and then injected into the bloodstream of a comatose patient. Their mission was to try to disperse a blood clot in the patient's brain that couldn't be treated by conventional surgery. My guest in this BritChips podcast is a...

Mikhail Lvovich Tsetlin was the visionary Soviet mathematician whose pioneering work married machine learning algorithms with game theory to create logic propositions for the classification of data used in AI decision making. His work is the basis for what became known as the Tsetlin Machine. I tell you this because my guest in the first episode of the new series of BritChips is semiconductor indu...

Since I launched the BritChips podcast series back in April, I've had a fair few conversations with founders and leaders of UK semiconductor startups. And it's perhaps no surprise how many of my guests had cut their teeth at what is undoubtedly the most successful global semiconductor design company to have come out of the UK - I'm referring of course to Arm. What's perhaps not so well known is wh...

Let me say from the outset that 'spectral imaging' has nothing to do with photographing ghosts. It's about capturing light across a wider range of wavelengths than the human eye can perceive. And the way this light interacts with various materials produces unique spectral 'fingerprints' which can be used to identify the composition of the materials. And that explanation has exhausted my meagre kno...

There is an English proverb attributed to 14th century poet and writer Geoffrey Chaucer that reads, 'Mighty oaks from little acorns grow'. Here's my version. 'A mighty arm from a little acorn grew.' Hold onto that thought. If you didn't know Stan Boland and looked him up on LinkedIn, you'd read that he is an Investor and Advisor. If you do know him, you might say that is a bit of an understatement...

Quantum computers like it cold. Very cold indeed. We're talking about temperatures close to absolute zero (-273.15°C) However, off-the-shelf electronics subsystems that connect them to the outside world do not like it anywhere near as cold. Typically, about -40°C is as cool as they go. Which means that the electronics have to sit outside the cryogenic environment, connected to the quantum computer...

If anyone should be known as the godfather of the Brazilian semiconductor industry, my vote would go to Brazil-born tech industry veteran Julio Leão da Silva Jr (or simply, Julio Leão). But he would be too modest to accept. Julio is Director of Engineering - Design Services BU & Brazil Design Centre Director at Abingdon-based, AIM-listed 'fabless' semiconductor design and supply start-up (and now...

How do you squeeze a quart into a pint pot? This is one of the fundamental problems facing semiconductor designers when trying to squeeze more circuits onto a chip. It's a particular challenge for processor chip designers because they need to locate high-speed cache memory circuits very close to the logic circuits. And the more powerful and faster the processor, the more cache you need. So space o...

How can you tell if the seemingly crystal-clear waters of a fish farm are not hiding traces of chemicals that could harm marine life? University of Edinburgh spinout, Kāhu SiliconBio, is developing biosensor technology capable of detecting and measuring trace chemicals in liquids in real time and at point of use. The technology is a unique melding of biotech and electronics, which can ‘eavesdrop’...

“What we tell our startups is they need to start fast and stay fast – time is not their friend.” This is the sage advice that Sean Redmond gives to founders and entrepreneurs that have been selected to participate in the Silicon Catalyst. UK accelerator and the ChipStartUK incubator. Redmond is managing partner at Silicon Catalyst. UK, the UK arm of the eponymous US-based semiconductor incubator a...

Timings are approximate: 00:00 - Intro 00:35 - How KuasaSemi became a family affair 04:52 - Aquarius 10:55 - KuasaSemi's relationship with SMD 18:09 - Validating Aquarius 21:18 - How KuasaSemi got its name 21:56 - How KuasaSemi got involved with Silicon Catalyst 26:10 - Funding background 28:55 - Phil's role 30:26 - Who does the cooking and who does the washing up? 31:33 - Their advice to family f...

Mahmoud Wagih was born in Egypt, freelanced as a graphic designer, studied in Malaysia, worked for ARM, had a research fellowship at Southampton University, and is now the founder and CEO of Glasgow-based wireless power startup, RX Watt. How did all that happen? In this podcast, Wagih explains how he met advisors while at university who believed in the commercial benefit of wireless power sensors...

Here’s a handy mantra for any tech startup: “Let’s finish what we started”. This was the advice Jonathan Reeves gave to the engineering team after joining Edinburgh-based underwater wireless tech start-up CSignum, originally as an investor and advisor. As he puts it, tech startups have a tendency to ‘chase the shiny new thing’. What is needed, he says, is to, ‘take what you've got, polish it a lit...

Award-winning tech industry analyst Anthony Miller chats with international electronics industry executive Noel McKenna about his experiences joining Glasgow/Edinburgh University biotech spin-out, Neuranics as CEO. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit anttheantidote.substack.com

Welcome to my new podcast series BritChips - conversations with movers and shakers in the UK semiconductor startup scene. The first is with Noel McKenna , CEO at Glasgow-based biotech startup, Neuranics and you can listen to it exclusively here on Substack. There’ll be more conversations coming very soon and you can find them all in the BritChips section on Substack. This is a public episode. If y...