company profile mesuro
Their demonstration at this conference was a big hit, with delegates queuing three or four deep at the Tektronix stand to witness the benefits of this novel, sophisticated measurement technique. The tremendous level of interest convinced Tasker and his colleagues that their technology could have mass industry appeal, and when they returned home they made enquiries within the University on how to exploit the commercial potential of their measurement technique.
These engineers were directed to Fusion IP, which has rights over university-owned IP at Cardiff University. When Fusion looked into the matter, they felt that the prospects for this venture were worth investigating, so they started a due diligence campaign, calling on the services of Emsley.
An exmaple of how Mesuro’s system can be used to map out the boundary
conditions of a semiconductor process/ device – the kneee region and the pinch- off region – using multiple bias points
room for improvement in the characterisation of power amplifiers.
Working together with his first student, Johannes Benedikt – now CTO of Mesuro and a professor in Cardiff’s Centre for High Frequency Engineering – they spent several years developing and refining the measurement system until it reached a level high enough to attract the attention of industry.
The system that they perfected employed a pair of Tektronix instruments: An arbitrary waveform generator that provides very good control through two channels, and a high-quality sampling oscilloscope. In addition, it featured their own multiplexer system that involved hardware insertions between the Tektronix’s instruments and the device, plus homespun software.
Getting off the ground When Tasker his co-workers went to various tradeshows, they tried to convince employees of Tektronix of the tremendous promise of their measurement technique. Their words initially fell on deaf ears, but they persisted and their efforts were rewarded in 2008 when they were invited to showcase their system on the Tektronix stand at the International Microwave Symposium (IMS) in Atlanta.
To gauge support for the innovative measurement technology, Emsley headed to the next big conference in the RF calendar, European Microwave Week. There he talked to most of the big instrument vendors, plus AWR, one of the world’s leading providers of software for designing circuits. “AWR’s interest and partnership with us extends from that very first meeting. They said ‘We want to work with you. When is this going to be ready?’ People were pushing for delivery dates.”
At that point Emsley realized that if Mesuro launched right away, it could make a splash at a very, very good time for the industry: “There was a lot of pressure within the industry to look at highly non-linear device technologies, and obtain much better results than had been obtained previously.”
Shortly after this conference, Emsley switched from a due diligence role to running the company. He then boarded a plane to the US to try and tie up a deal with Tektronix. The trip was highly worthwhile, with the two companies signing a memorandum of understanding.
Following this key milestone, Fusion stumped up £150,000 to get the start-up off the ground. The cash enabled Mesuro to build its first measurement system in time for launch at the IMS meeting in Boston, June 2009. While preparing for this meeting, the company
The benefits associated with Mesuro’s measurement techniques are by no means limited to gains in power amplifier efficiency: It can also help optimise the combination of power and efficiency in amplifiers used to make jammers in the defence industry; and it can also enable improvements in other non-linear devices, such as mixers and oscillators
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www.compoundsemiconductor.net March 2012
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