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Fulcrum Microsystems
Date Invested - March 20, 2000
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Fulcrum Microsystems (formerly Asynchronous Digital
Design) is a 50-person semiconductor start-up located in Calabasas
Hills, California. The company is focused on delivering high-performance
and power-efficient silicon solutions for emerging multi-processor
applications. They pioneered and have begun leveraging a patented
circuit design methodology that enables them to deliver semiconductors
that possess a number of unique characteristics as compared to high-performance
ASICs, including:
- Self-timed circuits with Gigahertz performance (4x ASICs)
- System-level integration (3x ASICs)
- Low power consumption (50% less than ASICs)
Unlike synchronous logic and other asynchronous design styles,
their delay-insensitive asynchronous circuits do not glitch, do
not have race conditions, and do not use a system clock to control
the flow of data through logic. These properties provide significant
and sustainable advantages over all other known VLSI design methodologies.
And, it's proven. Team members designed and fabricated several delay-insensitive
asynchronous chips while at Caltech, including an FIR filter in
1995 and a MIPS32 instruction set-compatible processor in 1998.
Since then, the company has fabricated and characterized several
complex devices, each validating critical components of their system-on-a-chip
framework. The most recent device was fabricated in a commercial
130nm process and operates at over 1.4GHz. The device contains a
system-on-a-chip interconnect that provides 800Gbps of switching
capacity. Fulcrum plans to announce major development partnerships
and begin shipping its first commercial chip in 2003. For more information
about Fulcrum Microsystems and its products, please visit them at
www.fulcrummicro.com.
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Eidogen, Inc.
Date Invested - October 25, 2000
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Eidogen, Inc (formerly Bionomix) is a Pasadena, California
based biotechnology company committed to delivering computational
drug discovery platforms designed to overcome the new challenges facing
drug discovery organizations in the post-genomic era. The last decade
has seen the revolutionary human genome project transform the way
our industry identifies drug targets. In the coming decade, an equally
important revolution in the fields of structural biology and protein
informatics will transform the way our industry performs target prioritization,
lead identification, and lead optimization. Eidogen was established
to lead this revolution. For more information on Eidogen, please visit
www.eidogen.com. |
Auilix Biopharma, Inc.
Date Invested - May 21, 2001
Auilix Biopharma, Inc.(formerly Codegrok) is developing therapeutic
applications based on insights into the regulatory regions of genes
that control gene-specific expression. This approach reveals information
about the natural taxonomy of gene networks and will pave the way
for multiple advances in human medicine. The Auilix team is composed
of multiple talented people and is advised by leading scientific
experts in the biological and computational aspects of gene regulation. |
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Language Weaver, Inc.
Date Invested - December 20, 2002
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Language Weaver, Inc. was incorporated in January, 2002 to commercialize
a completely statistical approach to the automatic translation
of human languages, also called machine translation. This
breakthrough technology has the potential to overcome the weaknesses
that have limited commercial success for machine translation in
the past. Language Weaver’s proprietary statistical translation
technology is the result of fifteen person-years of invention
and development at the University of Southern California’s
Information Sciences Institute (USC/ISI) by Drs. Kevin Knight
and Daniel Marcu, Language Weaver’s Founders, and their students.
On-going research funding for their work at USC/ISI is provided
by several government agencies including the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the National Science Foundation
(NSF). Their remarkable successes have made them the world’s
leaders in statistical approaches to automatic translation and
natural language processing.
In January 2003, Language Weaver, Inc. completed an extraordinarily
successful first year. Key accomplishments included securing $2
Million in U.S. Government development contracts focused on productization
of the core intellectual property: statistical language translation
technology. On the commercial side, Language Weaver has successfully
initiated beta test relationships with several multinational corporations,
which are expected to lead to licenses of commercial systems.
Finally, Language Weaver, Inc. closed on $759,000 in Series A
financing in December 2002, which can be used to cover the expenses
involved in starting a new company and business, and which are
not allowable in the context of the U.S. Government contracts.
In addition to these financial successes, the engineering team
has made excellent headway in product development, with a clear
vision of a controlled software development process. This early
attention to process lays the foundation for an efficient, predictable,
repeatable development process for new languages and features.
The product architecture is robust and flexible, to allow staged
introduction of new features and capabilities - the product is
designed to grow. And the product and marketing plans are well-coordinated
to take the shortest path to the largest part of the translation
market. Deliveries of our first products to both the US Government
and commercial customers are planned for late Summer 2003.
For more information visit www.languageweaver.com
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Syagen Technology, Inc.
Date Invested-September 28, 2001
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Syagen Technology, Inc. is a bioanalytical instrumentation
company located in Tustin, California. Syagen is rapidly commercializing
technology for high throughput molecular analysis based on mass
spectrometry. The technology is covered by several patents held
by the company. Syagen has developed innovative products lines for
the biopharmaceutical, aviation security, and chemical/biological
threat security markets. Syagen has customers and revenues, and
has significant strategic relationships with major instrument manufacturers.
The company also was named to the Deloitte & Touche Fast 50,
reflecting the fastest growing technology companies in Southern
California. For more information about Syagen Technology, please
visit them at www.syagen.com |
Systine Inc.
Date Invested - June 21, 2001
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Systine is commercializing a breakthrough technology (Low Energy
Electron Enhanced Etching – LE4) for plasma dry etching of
semiconductor chips. LE4 provides atomically smooth etched surfaces
and sidewalls at length scales ranging from millimeters to 20 nanometers,
without causing ion bombardment damage, the main problem with all
dry plasma etching methods. LE4 is the only technology that etches
with lighter electrons instead of the heavy ions in use currently.
Systine will design, manufacture, sell and service this semiconductor
front end processing equipment to a variety of customers. In the
early stage, the customers are compound semiconductor chip manufacturers
(using Gallium Arsenide, Gallium Nitride and Indium Phosphide) such
as TRW, Conexant, Agilent, AXT, Nitronex, etc. In the next stage,
Systine will sell equipment to silicon based chip manufacturers
like Intel, IBM, and Motorola.
Systine has a working 3” prototype with manual load lock and
sample stage. Systine is currently etching custom chips for potential
beta customers in preparation for early sales of R&D machines
to these customers.
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Viosense Corporation
Date Invested - February 28, 2001
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VioSense develops and markets innovative measurement systems for
applications ranging from industrial uses to basic research. The
Company’s business areas are in
- Micro and Mini Optical Sensors and Systems, utilizing optical
MEMS technology,
- 3-D Imaging Products, utilizing defocused volumetric imaging,
- Government R&D Projects.
Several patents and provisional patents cover the Company’s
new technologies, originally developed at Caltech and JPL, and licensed
to VioSense. The Company’s commercially available products
in the first two categories above include:
- Micro Velocimeters , Micro Shear Stress Sensors, Mini Laser
Doppler Velocimeters,
- 3-D Dynamic Profilometers, and 3-D Volumetric Particle Image
Velocimetry (PIV) systems.
Micro Sensors are used in wide range applications including flow
measurements for fluid mechanics, aerodynamics, hydraulics, microfluidics,
lab-on-a-chip, shear stress measurements for liquid and gas applications,
and surface measurements in paper, and fiber industries. Dynamic
profilometers are applicable for Computer Aided Engineering (CAE),
rapid prototyping, reverse engineering, security, medical and dental
imaging, 3-D video game and cartoon industries. Finally, 3-D volumetric
PIV systems are unique velocimeters for applications where instantaneous
and average volumetric flow field information is required.
VioSense Corporation is a Caltech Technology Transfer Company,
and a JPL Technology Affiliate, located in Pasadena, CA. Additional
information on The Company and its products is available at www.viosense.com
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