Friday, December 18, 2020
Interview with Vahid Manian, Morse Micro
Our interview this morning is with Vahid Manian, the Chief Operating Officer of Morse Micro (www.morsemicro.com), a semiconductor startup which is developing chips for the Wi-Fi HaLow market. We talked with Vahid--who is also Vice Chairman of Board of Directors for Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA), was a Broadcom executive, and also who served at Ethertronics--about Morse Micro's technology, as well as why the Australian company has an office and is hiring in Irvine.
What are you working on?
Vahid Manian: Morse Micro is an Australian startup company, headquartered in Sydney. We have offices in Irvine and in China as well. We are focused on developing Wi-Fi HaLow 802.11ah, which was solidified back in 2016. It's a new Wi-Fi starndard. Wi-Fi historically has been in the ISM band, the non-licensed band, including 2.4 Ghz, 5 Ghz and now 6 Ghz, and they also decided to take it down to sub-Ghz range mainly to support IoT devices. Our focus creating a full systems-on-a-chip (SoC) for that IoT market. As you know, the IoT market is very large, lots of devices and products out there. Some require longer reach and much slower throughput, and some require longer reach and much higher throughput than current technology provides. This particular standard was solidified to really solve that gap. We're a 75 employee company, and providing a completely SoC for that market.
What is the company doing here in Southern California?
Vahid Manian: We're based in Irvine. We opened up our Irvine office back in August of 2019, about a year and a half ago. Primarily, it was because I was here, as COO of the company and I didn't want to move to Australia. But what we are doing here is our marketing, our applications, our systems engineering, as well as operations, all centered right here. Also, our VP of Sales—though he's currently working from home in Boston—but he's also here in the US and comes out here often.
For those not familiar with IoT, what applications does this enable?
Vahid Manian: The Wi-Fi standards, meaning Wi-Fi 4, 5, and 6, as it moves up to Wi-Fi 5 and 6, the reason for those is to provide much higher throughput, Gigabits per second. The problem is, as the frequency goes up, is penetration and distance gets a lot smaller. As IoT devices had to rely on 2.4 Ghz. The problem is, that ended up being a very crowded space. You had Wi-Fi, you had Bluetooth, you had Zigbee, and that is so crowded, to have devices communicate there in that frequency band, there is always contention. The reason Wi-Fi alliance developed sub-Ghz, is it can provide the throughput and security that these devices need, but where they can be offloaded out of 2.4 Ghz. An example of this is security cameras. It's a market that is growing rapidly, it is transitioning from wired to wireless. It requires transmission of HD video, which requires 2 Mbits per second at a minimum, and if you have three or four cameras, that 8 Mbits per second. The problem is, no technology today can support that, and they don't have the security protocol. Standard Wi-Fi, 2.4Ghz can, but it has reach problems, can't penetrate through walls, windows, and floors. That means you need lots of access points. This new technology allows you to have a single access point, and have cameras inside or outside of your home or business, inside factories, with good security, without requiring lots of access points and making it cost prohibitive. That's just one example of a market, which is growing globally, and rapidly.
Where are your products now in terms of shipment?
Vahid Manian: The company is just four years old. We have test chips which we are demonstrating to our customers, and our production device will start next year, when we will have full blown Wi-Fi Alliance certified silicon. The Wi-Fi Alliance certification is still evolving, and something they will start doing the next calendar year.
You don't see a lot of new semiconductor startups nowadays, because of so many giant companies in the market. How do you compete?
Vahid Manian: Yes, that's a very good point. Part of the reason you don't see a lot of semiconductor startups, is the barrier to entry has become very, very difficult. When you're developing silicon, there are these advanced node technologies like 7nm, 5nm, the vertical set cost is $10M or $15M at a minimum, not to mention R&D cost and engineering, which is challenging. We believe that the heart of every single electronic equipment requires an SoC or semiconductor to be functional. When the company was started, we knew that it wouldn't be simple, it wouldn't be easy, that we'd need to hire resources. Fortunately, we have some very good investors that understand that, and behind us to allow us to invest and grow and be successful. How are we going to compete against the giants? I believe startup companies are a lot more agile in terms of development, in terms of speed, versus the bureaucracy that slows down innovation and growth in big companies.
What should we be watching from Morse Micro in the next year?
Vahid Manian: We're going to be having some products out there using our silicon in several different markets. Security cameras are going to be one of them. We also has a big path of adding people and resources. We're hiring here in Irvine, we're hiring in Australia, we're opening up an office in India and recruiting in India. We're growing very rapidly and adding resources to match our business plan.
Thanks!