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Industry News
January 9, 2013
Power Electronics Companies to Watch in 2013
2013 New Year's Power Celebration
The editorial staff at PowerPulse has been scouring the global power electronics industry, looking for up-and-coming companies. We have assembled a group of ten "companies to watch in 2013." At least a couple of these companies are still in 'stealth' mode and this will be one of the first public discussions of their activities. In other cases, the companies may have received recent and significant infusions of investment, signed new joint-venture agreements with one of the "majors", etc. These companies are (in alphabetical order); Akros Silicon, Amantys, Eta Devices, Ferric Semiconductor, GaN Systems, Green Plug, HexaTech, Nitride Solutions, Sankalp Semiconductor and Sarda Technologies Keep your eyes on them in the year to come.
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In November of 2012, Akros secured additional financing to supplement capital previously raised in 2012, bringing the total to $11M. In addition to Technology Partners, which led the most recent round of financing, Akros obtained financial support from existing investors: USVP, Levensohn Venture Partners and SPM Capital. The infusion of capital will be used for further expansion of sales and marketing channels and proliferation of new products into new market segments. Additionally, Akros is pleased to announce that Marc van den Berg from Technology Partners has joined Akros' Board of Directors.
Also in November, Akros announced an interoperability collaboration with Broadcom Corporation to provide fully integrated support of the emerging PoE (Power over Ethernet) 60 Watt extension. Broadcom has a family of PoE PSE (Power Sourcing Equipment) controllers (model BCM59111) that supports the rapidly emerging 60W application requirements. Akros Silicon is uniquely suited to collaborate with Broadcom to enable seamless 60W PoE connectivity. Akros' GreenEdge™ technology, integrated into a family of PoE system-on-a-chip (SoC) energy management ICs, allows high-speed digital communication across an integrated isolation barrier.
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Parviz Ghaffaripour, Akros Silicon's President & Chief Executive Officer, told PowerPulse, "Akros Silicon has established the foundation for Total Energy Management (TEM) through the combination of its innovative GreenEdge(TM) digital isolation and Energy$ense(TM) real-time power monitoring technologies. These technologies are incorporated into our pin-compatible series of Digital Energy Management Units (DEMUs) that provide System on Chip (SoC) multi-rail power conversion solutions for AC/DC and DC/DC applications. This provides the possibility for system designers to convert their traditional bag-of-chips design into an integrated, network-based energy management system that benefits from smaller size, higher efficiency, and full diagnostics and health monitoring features. Our recently announced interoperability collaboration with Broadcom places us at the forefront of 60W/90W PoE implementation. We expect to continue to expand our operations as market leading companies continue adopt our unique approach to TEM."
In November, Amantys announced the successful closure of a new funding round of $8m. PowerPulse learned from Richard Ord, Marketing Director with Amantys that the company has aggressive plans to put the new funding to work. In 2013, the company will extend its product range, both with higher voltage devices (devices targeted for voltages as low as 600V and up to 4.5kV and 6.5kV are under development) and new package variants, roll-out of Amantys Power Insight into OEM equipment with comprehensive software support tools suite, and grow its direct and indirect global sales and support organization.
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When asked about the new markets and applications, Bryn Perry, Amantys' CEO, was very clear: He sees Amantys' future as expanding into new regions and new applications. Areas such as traction and wind power are of special interest to this dynamic company. Wind applications especially are where Bryn sees an opportunity for Amantys to save its customers significant amounts of money by avoiding the costly downtime associated with this evolving industry, particularly when the installation is located offshore. Bryn said that he had heard figures in the renewables industry saying, "When a turbine goes down, it's like seeing your profits escaping downwind - lost forever."
Another mission-critical opportunity for Amantys is the electric railway system where high reliability means everything. At present, the time taken to service or repair these systems, whether wind or rail, is so great that profits are hit very hard for operators and their investors. Amantys' plug-and-play philosophy helps dramatically to reduce these painful costs. Another aspect of the company's crusade for higher reliability is seen in the way it monitors its products while in operation. By strategic placement of a sensor on the baseplate of a IGBT, for example, fault conditions can be alerted prior to it becoming a catastrophic failure and maintenance planned-in rather than it becoming a high-cost "rescue operation".
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