Firecomms, a start-up firm specialising in a new type of light technology called photonics, has head-hunted a new chief executive from the US and is close to signing its first chip-manufacturing deal with a Taiwanese firm.
Mr Declan O'Mahoney, a founding partner of US technology firm Northstar Systems and a native of Cork, has returned from California to lead the commercialisation of eight years of academic research in photonics.
He has joined several scientists from the National Microelectronics Research Institute in Cork, who have developed the technology for Firecomms. The company has received more than €1 million funding from Mentor Capital - the venture fund set up by entrepreneur Mr Michael Pierce - and the State agency Enterprise Ireland.
Firecomms has developed a new type of light technology that can be used to replace existing copper or glass fibre-optic cables that are used in electronic communications, according to Mr O'Mahoney, who says he is glad to be back working in the Republic.
"Our light technology is capable of producing enormously faster speeds than previously possible," he says. "It also overcomes existing technical difficulties to allow information to be carried via a simple plastic optical fibre."
This type of fibre optics dramatically reduces the cost of using the technology in industrial, commercial and personal applications, where fibre optics have in the past been prohibitively expensive.
"There are a lot of applications in the field of industrial automation such as car manufacturers - industries which need reliable data transmission in environments where there is a lot of electrical noise," says Mr O'Mahoney.
"If you need to send reliable signals to robots on a factory floor, you need a reliable transmission."
He says the type of photonics technology that Firecomms is developing will also have applications in the consumer electronics space, such as "firewires" which connect different electronic equipment.
The firm's first sale success is in Germany where an industrial company will pilot Firecomms technology embedded in communications chips. There are also possibilities in the automotive sector, says Mr O'Mahoney. "I think this is where we will see early revenues and that is exactly what our business plan calls for," he adds.
Mr O'Mahoney's experience of working in the Far East will prove vital for Firecomms, which is currently negotiating with a number of semiconductor manufacturers to manufacture its chips in bulk.
Although, he will not release the names of the companies with which he is in negotiations, Mr O'Mahoney says that a Taiwanese chip firm is the most likely manufacturing partner for Firecomms.
Firecomms will continue to leverage benefits in the future from its relationship with the National Microelectonics Research Centre, while operating as a fabless chip developer, says Mr O'Mahoney.
