New Norwegian chip company, Energy Micro AS, has been created by former key executives of Chipcon. The new company’s stated aim is to create the industry’s most energy friendly microcontrollers based on modern and powerful microprocessor architectures. The company has already received financial support from Innovation Norway and will seek to establish further financial support through other Norwegian Institutions. The founders and early employees will invest a total of $1.5 M in start-up capital.
Geir Førre, president and CEO of Energy Micro, was previously co-founder and CEO of Chipcon, a successful semiconductor company focusing on low power RF products. Chipcon was acquired by Texas Instruments for $200 M in January 2006. Øyvind Janbu, CTO of Energy Micro, was one of the early employees at Chipcon and held several key technical positions within the company. The company aims to be fully operational on 1 January 2008.
Førre said, “We aim to fund the company development ourselves during the first two years of operations. Thereafter we will invite external investors to participate in Energy Micro. All new employees will also be offered stocks in the company, at a level that really matters. Our 10-year goal is to establish over a 1 percent market share in a market that today is worth more than $15 B and growing more than five percent per year.”