Low power, high hopes

CamSemi co-founder Professor Gehan Amaratunga.

The company he co-founded in 2002, CamSemi, hopes to prosper during the global economic storm by riding the green wave. Its trump card: a new way of converting AC (alternating current) power from the mains to the DC (direct current) required for electronic products.

CamSemi has picked up several awards since it was spun out of Cambridge University. So it was no surprise that it notched up another last week in London – University Spin-Out of the Year – at the Rosenblatt New Energy Awards 2009.

With traditional devices, says Gehan Amaratunga, CamSemi’s Chief Technology Officer, the conversion has only been 50 per cent efficient, “so you throw away as much energy as you consume”. Amaratunga, who is a professor of engineering at Cambridge, says the company’s remit is to come up with electronics that convert to DC much more efficiently – with efficiencies up to 90 per cent at power consumptions down to 10 watts.

One result is a mobile phone charger that can meet the big manufacturers’ voluntary code of practice with a five–star rating. That means a charger that even when left plugged into the mains without being attached to a mobile uses less than 30 milliwatts of power.

Not only is the power consumption slashed, but CamSemi’s technology also requires fewer components in the adaptors, meaning less metal, less plastic, less weight and less damage to the environment.

Green advantage

It’s that kind of green advantage that CamSemi thinks will help it through the credit crunch. “Despite the fact that the commercial conditions in the outside world are incredibly challenging,” says VP Business Operations Ted Wiggans, “people are still building mobile phones and wireless routers, still building devices that need to operate efficiently.”

Amaratunga and co-founder Florin Udrea, reader in engineering in Amaratunga’s department, got the germ of their idea for the company back in 2001. It was, says Amaratunga, his first foray into company creation. But 15 years’ experience of working with leading companies had given him a good appreciation of the type of intellectual property that has commercial value, he says.

He and Udrea turned to Cambridge Enterprise, the university’s tech transfer operation, which helped with the first round of funding – £250,000 from the University Challenge Seed Fund scheme – and with licensing. In return, Cambridge took equity in the new company, augmented with £150,000 from its own VC fund, which it still holds. CamSemi has since gone through more funding rounds, raising £25 million in total. “We’re funded through to breakeven,” says Amaratunga.

“Cambridge University has been very accommodating,” says Amaratunga. “[It] doesn’t necessarily look on commercialisation as a cash cow. It thinks it has a duty to enable research to be developed for the benefit of society. So it will take risks to help that to happen.”

The company is introducing what Wiggans refers to a “waterfall of new products”, and has customers around the world. It now employs nearly 60 people globally, mainly in Cambridge but also in Taipei, Taiwan, and in Shenzhen, China, where it has field engineers and salespeople (most mobile phones are made in China). A small offshoot on the West Coast of the US liaises with big brand mobile manufacturers.

Cambridge’s return has been more than financial. CamSemi is funding research students at the university, working on what Amaratunga calls “the most speculative research” on new areas that the company could perhaps move into.

Science|Business was a media sponsor of the Rosenblatt New Energy Awards 2009. It was not involved in the awards selection process.