RF MEMS switch startup raises $7m to come to market
The round C funding was led by the Ambition Numérique fund, together with Iris Capital, VIVES, Capitalaria and early investors of the company. bpifrance Investissement, Capitalaria, VIVES as well as previous investors (A2D Invest, Finovam, Rhône-Alpes-Création, Eurekap!, Helea Financiere and business angels) also participated.
"The progress that we have made in turning RF MEMS switches into reality has really impressed our investors," said Guillaume d’Eyssautier, CEO of DelfMEMS. "The test silicon has shown that we have cracked the problems that have caused many MEMS companies to fall by the roadside. This is creating a lot of interest in the industry especially as we will have samples for customers to evaluate in a few weeks. This latest round of financing will be used to consolidate the organization and be ready for production ramp-up by the end of 2014."
The DelfMEMS technology uses a new, integrated, micro-mechanical building block that is based on a new IP portfolio that includes seven key patents. The switch is an anchorless and push-pull mechanical device that is deflected by electrostatic forces to switch RF signals based on the principle of current electro-mechanical relays/switches. It solves past issues and substantially improves insertion loss, linearity, integration, hot switching behavior, switching time and power consumption to simplify RF architectures.
The technology provides improved receiver sensitivity leading to fewer dropped calls and better call quality together with optimal carrier aggregation switching for massively improved data rates. Combined with high levels of RF integration, this also results in a lower bill of materials cost for the RF Front-End module, and significantly longer battery life by reducing the power consumption of the RF module by up to 20%.
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