French chip start-up gets LG deal, seeks capital

French chip-design start-up Insight SiP has agreed to supply its miniature WiFi wireless-network technology for use in mobiles phones and cameras made by South Korean electronics conglomerate LG. It’s now looking for more capital to develop more products and expand in North America.

Insight SiP, created in august 2005 with the support of the incubator of technology park Sophia Antipolis in southern France, is moving fast from research to commercialisation of its next-generation chip technology, called system-in-package. Instead of the usual route to miniaturising electronics - shrinking the components - it is embedding them into the chip set. Insight SiP’s expertise concentrates on ceramic layers for passive components such as filters that are common in communications systems.

Insight SiP has developed the world’s smallest WiFi module (8 X 8 X 1,4 mm) for its main industrial partner, Swedish company Nanoradio. A just-announced deal will place those modules into Korean group LG’s next generation mobile phones and cameras, where they will be coupled with cellular communications functions to make those devices able to communicate. Last September, Insight SiP and Nanoradio announced a similar deal with Japanese consumer electronics company Sharp.

For Insight SiP co-founder and CEO, Michel Beghin, “those deals are really good news because they validate our technology expertise and open the door for a first round of venture fundraising this year” Financed by friends and family so far, Insight SiP is ready to open its capital to support its North American development on the one hand and its own products on the other. “We have already two clients in the US, but we feel demand is very strong there. In system in package with passive components most of the competition is in Asia”, explains Beghin.

He foresees also a market for multi-systems in package where not just one set of components is embedded in the substrate of the chips, but various systems are embedded that can share functionalities. For example, Insight SiP and its scientific partners at Laboratoire d’electronique, antennes et telecommunications, a CNRS unit at the University of Nice, are working on new Wifi-WB (or wireless USB) and WiFi-WiMax systems in package.