Cambridge, UK-based PragmatIC Semiconductor, provider of “ultra-low-cost” flexible electronics, announced that it has raised $80M (approx €68.6M) in its Series C round of funding.
Erik Langaker, independent Chair of the Board, says, “The round has been subscribed by a highly qualified select group of industrial and individual investors with significant experience in the semiconductor industry. Their backing will enable the team to more than double in size over the next 12 months and expand capacity to fulfill the rapidly growing demand for electronics in everyday objects.”
“Enabling the Internet of Everything”
Founded in 2010 by Richard Price and Scott White, PragmatIC Semiconductor is a platform that creates ultra-low-cost flexible integrated circuits (FlexICs). Designers can create their own application-specific flexible devices using the company’s FlexIC Foundry service. It allows development at a fraction of the cost and dramatically reduces the time required to develop compared to traditional silicon ICs.
The company claims that innovators use its foundry offering to iterate and test concepts within weeks, accelerating the development cycle. PragmatIC claims that its FlexICs, which are thin, flexible, and robust, can be easily integrated with other thin-film electronic components, thereby allowing for the creation of novel solutions.
FlexICs are manufactured on the company’s FlexLogIC production system, a scalable manufacturing model. PragmatIC also offers off-the-shelf FlexICs. Its standard FlexIC product – ConnectIC extends proven applications such as RFID and NFC to enable trillions of smart objects to engage with consumers and their environments.
PragmatIC’s products have been adopted by various sectors including consumer goods, games, retail, pharmaceutical, and security. Headquartered in Cambridge, UK, the company’s manufacturing operation is in the North East. It is backed by investors including Cambridge Innovation Capital, Arm, and Avery Dennison.
Funds to build FlexLogIC fab
The proceeds from this round will enable PragmatIC to build a second FlexLogIC fab in the North East of England in order to meet the demands for ultra-low-cost flexible integrated circuits (FlexICs) for the Internet of Everything.
The funds will also help in strengthening the company’s position in the UK to fulfill its ambition in becoming the leader in designer and manufacturer of next-gen semiconductors.
Scott White says, “This successful Series C round is a testament to the potential for our technology to enable trillions of smart items and address key UN sustainable development goals. Our FlexLogIC-002 fab will deliver a significantly higher capacity than our first line, while still maintaining our signature ultra-low capex, fast production cycle time, and minimal carbon footprint.”
“In addition to supporting our continued commercial ramp, it provides a template for rolling out a distributed global network of FlexLogIC systems, offering a Fab-as-a-Service (FaaS) for dedicated production on major customer sites to enable efficient and secure semiconductor supply chains,” adds White.
Recent developments
In 2021, PragmatIC demonstrated improvement in complexity and compute capability for non-silicon chips by producing flexible microprocessors.
These include 6502 processor – the iconic design that kick-started the personal computer revolution, and PlasticArm – an ultra-minimalist Arm (32-bit Cortex-M0+) based system-on-a-chip that is 12 times more complex than previous flexible electronics.
Dipesh Patel, CTO of Arm, says, “Billions of everyday objects could benefit from being part of the Internet of Things, but to continue to scale sustainably we need to explore new approaches for embedding intelligence into everyday objects. Flexible electronics can extend the range and scope of what is possible today and we see massive potential for it to be creatively adopted by the Arm ecosystem, leading to innovation with global impact.”
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