By Arkansas Business Staff
9/27/2011

Omid Moghadam and Calvin Goforth of Virtual Incubation Company (left) discuss the NanoWatt investment with firm CEO Ron Foster (center), Jo Ann Campbell and ASTA board member Gary Campbell.

NanoWatt Design of Fayetteville has received $70,000 in seed-capital investment funding from the Arkansas Science & Technology Authority to further develop and commercialize its microchip circuit architecture.

The firm's new technology has a broad range of applications capable of extending battery life in devices ranging from cell phones to pacemakers, according to a press release.

NanoWatt chips have been tested to use just 20 percent of the power compared to most state-of-the-art designs now being simulated, addressing one of the top three concerns of the $300 billon dollar semi-conductor industry.

According to NanoWatt CEO Ron Foster, this in the first step in a process that could make a major impact on high-tech job creation and state economic development.

"As we grow, we expect the state to see a return on investment both financially and in jobs for graduates of Arkansas universities," he said. "This award will allow us to begin advance design work, and to actively promote the company."

NanoWatt was founded earlier this year and is a portfolio client of Virtual Incubation, a technology venture-development firm based in Fayetteville. CEO Calvin Goforth sees great promise in having a chip designer in Arkansas.

"NanoWatt Design's fabless semiconductor model provides a great opportunity for it to grow fast without demanding huge amounts of capital," he said. "Fabless companies such as Qualcomm, Broadcom and Nvidia grew quickly and impacted the national economy in just a few years after startup. We believe that NanoWatt Design's intellectual property platform provides similar growth opportunity."

ASTA is one of the state's three economic development agencies charged with the development of high-paying, technology-based jobs, cutting-edge research and the financing of technology-based businesses.