Micro Components Ltd. (MCL), a leader in semiconductor packaging technologies, has announced that Samsung Ventures Investment Corp. has made a multi-million dollar strategic investment in the company as part of its current financing round.
     This is the first investment that Samsung Ventures has made in an Israeli technology company Samsung Ventures invests in leading technology companies related to the core business activities of the Samsung Group, including flagship company Samsung Electro Mechanics Co., MCL primary customer of LED packaging technologies.
     MCL designs, manufactures, and markets superior packaging solutions to the advanced semiconductors packaging market.
     "We are excited to make this strategic investment in MCL, a company providing strategic technology to one of our important Group companies," said Jong Won Kim, Samsung Venture's VP of Investment.
     "As highly selective investors, we invest in highly innovative market leaders and MCL provides a breakthrough packaging technology positions it to become a market leader," he added.
     Jae Wan Kim, Samsung Venture's Senior Investment Manager, added, "Our investment in MCL follows our assessment that its solution will be a key enabler for the rapidly developing LED market, as well as for a wide spectrum of additional markets and applications. As a strategic investor, we intend to strongly promote the excellent relationship between our two organizations."
     "We are gratified that Samsung, one of our key customers, has made such a major commitment to MCL," stated Dr. Uri Mirsky, MCL's Founder and CEO. "As one of the industry's most respected players in semiconductor, displays, telecommunication and consumer electronics, Samsung's desire to partner with us is a tremendous validation of our technology and market positioning that we believe will assist us in our marketing and fundraising efforts."
     MCL (www.mcltek.com) is a leading developer of breakthrough semiconductor packaging solutions for high power microelectronic components.
     Designed for the needs of the fast-growing LED and Backlight Units (BLU) market, MCL's patented ALOX technology offers unmatched performance and heat dissipation characteristics, both of which are critical for overcoming the miniaturization and the power challenges of advanced semiconductor packaging.

POSDATA sets up office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

     POSDATA Co., Ltd. opened an office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to prepare for a push into the Mobile WiMAX market in 2008.
     The office will be used as the SE Asian Regional Hub for the POSDATA Mobile WiMAX sales and engineering teams. The KL based team will also develop local business partnerships and establish a centre of excellence for the support of Mobile WiMAX technologies.
     In Singapore, following tough scrutiny by the Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) of Singapore, POSDATA's Mobile WiMAX base stations and terminals were certified in January.
     IDA certification is needed to supply telecommunications and other IT equipment throughout Singapore, and means that POSDATA has gained first-mover advantage in the city-states competitive market environment.
     Joonil Shin, Senior VP of POSDATA said that POSDATA will lead the drive to expand the Mobile WiMAX market in the SE Asian market.
     "We have ambitious plans for Mobile WiMAX in both Malaysia and Singapore, as well as other key countries in SE Asia markets, " Shin said.
     POSDATA is a total IT solutions provider and a subsidiary of POSCO, the global steel company.
     Based on its core Mobile WiMAX technologies developed in-house, the company has been providing Mobile WiMAX base stations, ASN-gateways, network management systems, as well as user terminals, to worldwide customers.
     FLYVO is a brand name for POSDATA's Mobile WiMAX business.
     FLYVO is a total system solution comprising base stations, ASN-GW, network element management system, and end user devices.
     POSDATA has successfully trialed FLYVO with world class operators in several countries of Asia and technology has been proven not only commercially and economically viable, but robust in the most demanding situations.
     FLYVO make the Internet fly, letting users access the Internet wherever they go, whenever they wish-at high speeds and throughout large coverage areas-no longer limited to low data rates, stationary positions, or isolated hot spots.
     This futuristic capability is real affordable right now. POSDATA is today ready to deploy FLYVO commercially with service providers in all parts of the world and is committed to giving global wireless operators the ability to economically deliver today's most advanced services mobile Internet, broadband data, voice For more information, please visit www.flyvo.com.

Gentag's RFID cell phone patent approved in Korea

     Gentag has been notified by the Korean Patent Office that its patent entitled "Diagnostic Radio Frequency Identification Sensors and Applications Thereof" has been allowed and will issue as a patent shortly.
     This important patent complements already issued RFID cell phone patent 7,148,803.
     Low cost disposable RFID sensors are now possible with Gentag's proprietary reference technology.
     Since RFID-enabled cell phones are currently either already available or under development with major cell phone manufacturers worldwide for both the 13.56 and UHF (Gen-2) frequencies and that market forecasts predict that up to 1 out of 2 phones in the future will be RFID-enabled, the global emergence of RFID sensor networks can be anticipated.
     By combining RFID cell phones and RFID sensors with cellular networks or the Internet, the consumer will be empowered to read any RFID sensor tag anywhere for almost any application.
     A particular focus area for Gentag using RFID cell phones are diagnostic applications. RFID sensors can be integrated into low cost, non-invasive, disposable diagnostic devices such as smart disposable wireless skin patches or personal drug delivery systems and read directly with a cell phone under existing Gentag/Altivera patents.
     The Korean patent will cover important market applications of multi-protocol RFID-enabled cell phones such as allowing consumers to read disposable wireless diagnostic skin patches, including glucose.
     The patent also will cover reading RFID immunoassays for Point of Care (POC) or home-based advanced diagnostics using cell phones.
     RFID immunoassays can be used for many key market applications such as trace analysis of contaminants in foods, pathogen detection, etc. Other diagnostic applications for cell phones are also covered.
     "The allowance of this patent in Korea is an important milestone in our vision to create low cost consumer-based cell phone-sensor networks and revolutionize diagnostics worldwide" announced Dr. John P. Peeters, the founder of Gentag. "We look forward to working with our partners to bring this technology to market as soon as possible."
     The newly allowed patent is owned by Altivera, LLC, a Gentag operated and managed company.For licensing, or for partnership opportunities, please contact Gentag at info@gentag.com.

CSR & Samsung slash cost of GPS modules for mobiles

     CSR has halved the cost of embedded GPS solutions through a collaboration with Samsung Electro-Mechanics Company (Samsung). The resulting products, based on CSR's GPS software and Samsung's module hardware, bring best in class location-based services to mobile phones, media players and personal navigation devices, while taking the guesswork out of GPS RF design and allowing OEMs an exceptionally short route to market.
     According to ABI Research, the market for GPS enabled handsets alone is set to generate $50bn in revenues in 2008, with that figure set to rise to $100bn by 2012.
     CSR's software approach eliminates the need for a dedicated GPS baseband; this reduces the cost of the module to less than half of what competitors are able to offer, and offers manufacturers a low cost route to take advantage of this high growth market.
     The 9.8x9.8x2.15 mm Samsung module is based on the SiGe Semiconductor SE4120S GPS RF IC and is a complete GPS RF subsystem, including voltage regulation, RTC and TCXO, SAW filter and LNA. When combined with CSR's GPS software running on a typical applications processor, the system achieves tracking sensitivity of -159 dBm and has a cold start acquisition time of under 40 seconds.
     Dr. Stuart Strickland, Vice President of CSR's Location Business Unit, commented, "Our software architecture already allows the lowest cost design for embedding GPS in high volume applications and we've seen strong interest from tier one mobile handset and consumer electronics companies. By partnering with Samsung, we are now able to completely eliminate a complex, risk-laden, and time-consuming step in the product design and integration process, thus making this lower cost alternative available to a much broader range of customers."
     CSR will be demonstrating its software-based GPS technologies at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this month. CSR's customers include industry leaders such as Apple, Dell, LG, Motorola, NEC, Nokia, Panasonic, RIM, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TomTom and Toshiba.
     CSR has its headquarters and offices in Cambridge, UK, and offices in Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, India, France, Denmark, Sweden and both Dallas and Detroit in the USA. More information can be found at www.csr.com.