News

21 July 2006

 

AmberWave closes on $25m Series E funding

AmberWave Systems Corp of Salem, NH, USA, which develops and licenses technology for manufacturing strained silicon and other advanced semiconductor materials and devices, has raised $25m in Series E round
funding. Participants included all existing venture investors (Adams Capital Management, TeleSoft Partners, Arch Venture Partners, 3i and The Hillman Company). This adds to the total of $66.7m that AmberWave raised in its
previous four rounds of financing.

"This round of funding demonstrates the strong commitment we have from our investors and allows us to continue to develop and license AmberWave's technology for semiconductor technology companies world-wide," says
president Richard Faubert.

AmberWave's strained silicon technology is a result of more than 15 years of research at MIT, AT&T Bell Labs and its own research facility. AmberWave has a 5000 square foot class 10 cleanroom in Salem, and has assembled a
portfolio of over 150 issued and pending patents. The company also offers a range of manufacturing and technical support services enabling licensees to integrate its technology into advanced manufacturing processes. AmberWave was recently named one of the Red Herring Top 100 Private Companies in North America.

In addition, in March AmberWave announced a cooperative agreement with Purdue University to jointly develop technologies for the integration of semiconductor devices on III-V materials.

"We have been working on III-V material technology for some time and this collaboration with Purdue will significantly enhance that development," said Richard Faubert, AmberWave¹s president and CEO.

The collaboration's principal investigator is Dr Peide (Peter) Ye of Purdue's School of Electrical and Computer Engineering. Ye is an expert in III-V MOSFET technology and atomic layer deposition (ALD) and was previously
a researcher at Bell Laboratories of Lucent Technologies and Agere Systems. His background in solving the challenges of new materials development was the compelling reason for the selection of Purdue as a research partner, said AmberWave.

"AmberWave not only brings a strong development capability with expertise in deposition and defectivity in mixed-material systems, but also has an effective business development process with an ability to see results
through to commercial use," said Ye.

* In June, AmberWave¹s board of directors gained William J. Merritt, president and CEO of InterDigital Communications Corp, which is a designer and developer of advanced wireless technologies and products for voice and data communications. Merritt led the building of InterDigital's licensing program and its intellectual property portfolio, which has generated over $1bn over the past 10 years. "Merritt brings significant experience and strategic understanding of the operations of a research and licensing
company," said Faubert. "As AmberWave continues to grow, his insights will be invaluable."

Visit: http://www.amberwave.com