Designing the future in Europe's Silicon Valley
Bristol city region is at the centre of a Silicon design cluster that is the second biggest in the world, after Silicon Valley. It is double the size of its nearest UK competitor, Cambridge, and in the last decade, start-ups in the South West have attracted more than $550 million in investment and returned more than $800 million to shareholders. In the heart of the city, Bristol company XMOS is developing a revolutionary microchip that will power the electronic devices we’ll be using in years to come.
Developing the technology
Computer chips are a universal feature of modern life. They surround us – in our mobile phones, our computers, our cars. The number of embedded computers is growing every year, and with them the demands we place on our gadgets and gizmos.
Increasingly, electronic devices are fashion items, changing colour or function every few months. This poses a problem for manufacturers as most chips are designed to work with specific devices, limiting their style changing potential. But Professor David May and his colleagues at XMOS are working on the solution.
Xmos, which spun out from Bristol University in 2005, has designed a programmable silicon chip for use in digital electronics, such as consumer audio devices like the iPod, which allows the manufacturers of electronics equipment to follow fashions without the need to wait for costly redesign of the product.
Professor May explains:
“What we’re about is producing microprocessors for a new generation of electronic design. There’s a shift from a time when we designed a chip with a specific purpose for every individual function, to a world in which we’ll create a general purpose chip”
It goes hand-in-hand with electronics becoming much more about fashion items. You can’t design a new chip for every new use; it’s too expensive and takes too long. So XMOS provides the general purpose product which can be customised by programming quickly and built into many different products.”
So far, Xmos has signed up about 50 customers around the world, which embed the chips in their own products – mainly specialist electronic equipment, such as audio systems in professional studios or process monitoring equipment for factories, to provide an essential element of control.
A prime location
Xmos remains rooted in Bristol, and the company’s success can be attributed in some part to its location. Around a third of the people working at XMOS are ex-Bristol University students who’ve graduated in the last three or four years.
“There’s a huge retention rate for students who come to the the city to study and don’t leave – which is great because it’s important for a young company like us to be able to draw on that kind of talent pool”.
But it’s not just the talent within its own industry that keeps XMOS in Bristol. One of the most exciting developments is the growing connection between what Professor May calls the ‘artistic creative side’ and the ‘technological creative side’ of the industry.
“Here in Bristol you actually have all of these dimensions – the designers, the styling designers, the electronics designers and media content production. These will be the key skills needed in the 21st century”.
Visit the XMOS website to find out the company's latest news or watch the Science City Bristol film, featuring Professor David May.