company profile mesuro
closed a second funding round that netted £1 million, with contributions coming from Fusion, Finance Wales and ERA foundation.
From then on the Cardiff start-up has been working with an increasing large number of customers. Often, relationships begin with what Mesuro describes as ‘measurement services’, which is essentially device characterization.
“From there, it will develop into demonstration evaluations – that’s us providing software and hardware solutions to them,” explains Mathias. “We integrate that into the existing equipment that they have in the labs, or new equipment that they are buying in to support this activity.” Although Mesuro developed its technology using Tektronix’s signal generators and analysers, its hardware and software can work with all the leading brands of instrumentation.
“Recently, we’ve become technical partners to [instrumentation manufacturers] Rohde and Schwarz, and that has been based on their experience of our engineering team,” says Emsley. Market success is also behind this move, with sales of systems made by Mesuro employing Rohde and Schwarz instruments. One attraction of this pairing is that it is possible to build a relatively compact measurement system by selecting a particular Rohde and Schwarz vector network analyser, which also incorporates signal sources.
Mass appeal
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.
What’s more, Mesuro’s technique can aid the development of semiconductor devices, or play a role in quality control. “We can tell device engineers an awful lot about their device technology – how the currents and voltages and biasing points work together,” explains Emsley. Armed with this information, it is possible expose trapping effects, uncover pinch-off effects and also understand how the device really operates.
In addition, this current and voltage data – which is inaccessible with traditional techniques – is a valuable aid to the modelling of semiconductor devices. “In general, a foundry will be providing models of their process for their customers to use in simulations,” says Mathias. “If they can improve the accuracy of the information contained in those models, that’s valuable
The Mesuro MB20 open loop acttive harmonic integrated test
system.This features three harmonic load pull over the 0.8-6.0 GHz range and is capable of testing 20 W CW active devices
to them and their customers. That’s another area where our system is used a lot.”
Emsley says that the customers that have bought a Mesuro measurement system are very enthusiastic about the technology: “[Those] that we had last year will all re-order or have re-ordered.”
To spur further growth, Mesuro is going to devote more resources to sales, a move that will be financed through the closing of another funding round this year. Revenue should also increase with a streamlining of its measurement services. “We have a fruitful measurement services pipeline at the moment,” explains Emsley, who reveals that many of these requests involve similar types of measurements at similar frequencies and powers. “So we need to establish dedicated systems to enable us to deliver that much more effectively and much more quickly.”
With a growing band of loyal customers and a clear vision for the future, Mesuro looks well placed to get through the testing times ahead. And when it does, this Cardiff spin-off should win further plaudits for its key role in driving up the performance of non-linear devices.
© 2012 Angel Business Communications. Permission required.
March 2012
www.compoundsemiconductor.net 49
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136