Pioneering chip designer leans on Cognidox
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| Xmos iPod dock |
Xmos chips can be customised through straightforward software programming rather than replacing expensive fixed-functionality circuitry, dramatically reducing the costs associated with developing complex electronic hardware systems.
This ability is the Holy Grail for the silicon chip industry and, according to Cognidox CEO, Paul Walsh, Xmos has the foundations to be the next company ubiquitously found inside consumer electronic devices.
A technology that can dramatically reduce the costs associated with developing complex electronic hardware systems has seen Xmos raise at least $17.2m since its 2005 incorporation, much of it coming from Cambridge through Amadeus Capital and DFJ Esprit.
The company also has well known Cambridge entrepreneurs and investors Charles Cotton and Hermann Hauser, on its board.
Alex van Someren, a partner in the Amadeus & Angels Seed Fund, says the attraction of the Xmos product is that it enables manufacturers to keep with the speed of change of IT technologies and standards without always having to take on constant and costly redesigns.
Cognidox's role has been to apply its data management software to the Xmos infrastructure, setting up an internal collaboration workspace and a common repository to store IP assets where they can also be licensed for release to the developer community and distribution channel.
It is also key to Xmos' community minded customer and partner forum, the XCore Exchange, making it easy for Xmos to decide which information is public, which requires prior registration, and which needs to be kept exclusively for customers, partners and distributors.
Xmos' early markets include consumer electronics such as audio, industrial control systems such as brushless motor Control, and automotive applications where multiple embedded processors are required.
