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Irish IoT chip manufacturer DecaWave has been named Start-Up to Watch at this year’s Global Semiconductor Alliance awards.
While major corporations such as Intel have turned Ireland into a major producer of internet of things (IoT) hardware, the country’s indigenous start-ups are showing themselves to be just as capable of producing on the world stage.
Last September, two of those companies – Taoglas and DecaWave – announced they had joined forces to create the world’s first ever ultra-wideband (UWB) antenna range for centimetre-level indoor positioning.
Now, the latter has been honoured at this year’s Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) awards – the industry’s ‘Oscars’ – with the Start-Up to Watch award.
Headquartered in Dublin and with offices in France, China and South Korea, the start-up has gone from strength to strength securing $30m in funding in 2015, followed by reaching the milestone of 1m of its chips shipped around the world.
In its announcement of the winners, the GSA said that Decawave was chosen as it was “a company that has demonstrated the potential to positively change its market or the industry through the innovative use of semiconductor technology or a new application for semiconductor technology”.
Other winners at the awards included some Irish-based multinationals such as Analog Devices that was named as the most respected semiconductor company with sales of between $1bn and $5bn.
Last year the company celebrated its 40th anniversary in Ireland where it now employs 1,200 people, the company made a strategic move to buy its rival Linear Technology for $14.8bn last July.
The biggest winner at the awards was Nvidia winning both the prize for most respected semiconductor company with sales of more than $5bn, and the winner of the Favourite Analyst Semiconductor Company award.
