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SiLC Technologies Recognized by Frost & Sullivan for Technology Innovation in 3D/4D Imaging Industry

SiLC Technologies Recognized by Frost & Sullivan for Technology Innovation in 3D/4D Imaging Industry

SiLC’s Proprietary Silicon Photonics Integration Solution Slated to Disrupt the Global LiDAR Market
MONROVIA, Calif., July 23, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — SiLC Technologies, Inc., (SiLC), the leading developer of integrated single-chip FMCW LiDAR solutions, today announced that Frost & Sullivan, the prestigious market research firm, has selected the company for its 2020 North American 3D/4D LiDAR Imaging Industry Technology Innovation Award.

This recognition comes on the heels of SiLC being selected by EETimes as one of the emerging silicon startups to watch worldwide. According to the Frost & Sullivan report, SiLC’s proprietary 4D LIDAR chip is ideally positioned to disrupt the global LIDAR market due to its unique capabilities with broad applications, including autonomous vehicles, machine vision, and augmented reality.

“We’re delighted by this recognition and greatly appreciate the depth and quality of Frost & Sullivan’s analysis of SiLC’s breakthrough Smart 4D Vision Sensor technology,” said Mehdi Asghari, CEO of SiLC Technologies. “We also appreciate that Frost & Sullivan highlighted the breadth of our technology, which has the potential to replace ToF-based LiDAR sensors used in applications from automotive advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and self-driving autonomous vehicles to augmented reality, security, and industrial machine vision.”

Each year, Frost & Sullivan embarks on a rigorous selection and benchmarking process for its technology innovation leadership awards and recognizes companies that lead the development and successful introduction of high-tech solutions to customers’ most pressing needs.

“With the growing demand for LiDAR solutions across emerging applications and industry trends, such as autonomous vehicles and Industry 4.0, SiLC Technologies is poised to emerge as a forerunner in FMCW-based LiDAR solutions,” said Frost & Sullivan’s Varun Babu, Industry Analyst, TechVision. Furthermore, the firm’s Best Practices research group reports that SiLC Technologies’ Smart Vision is expected to disrupt the global LiDAR market in the next three to five years by providing in-depth, detailed information about objects in many user environments.

The report states, “SiLC Technologies’ proprietary silicon photonic 4D chip-scale imaging platform manufactured utilizing CMOS fabrication infrastructure is likely to be a game-changer. SiLC’s plan to adopt a semiconductor business model to make its solutions widely available to many end users and developers across a broad range of applications and markets should enable aggregate volume scaling beyond what any single player could enable and hence offer cost points that would otherwise not be possible. Furthermore, SiLC’s solution has already demonstrated long-range (>300m) and high resolution. This added to its integrated approach enabling compact footprint, low power dissipation, and solid-state reliability is likely to offer a platform that could be capable of ubiquitous deployment.”

Frost & Sullivan’s market research forecasts, “The global market for CMOS image sensors will approach about $30 billion over the next few years, positioning SiLC Technologies, with its recent release of high-performance 4D+ Vision Chip, to achieve optimum growth in the near future.”

Frost & Sullivan concludes, “SiLC Technologies’ patent-protected technology and broad customer engagements should provide it with vast growth opportunities to build a global footprint over the long term. As a pioneering market participant, the company’s positioning and marketing strategy for its production-scalable technology will allow it to capture significant market share in the coming years.”

SiLC’s silicon photonics integration platform offers a cost-effective solution by integrating all the high-performance components needed into a single silicon chip through mature semiconductor fabrication processes offering a low cost, compact, and low power solution.

SiLC Technologies Raises $12M in Seed Funding to Deliver Long-Range, Single-Chip LiDAR for Autonomous Vehicles, Machine Vision, and Augmented Reality

SiLC Technologies Raises $12M in Seed Funding to Deliver Long-Range, Single-Chip LiDAR for Autonomous Vehicles, Machine Vision, and Augmented Reality

Funding Round Led by Dell Technologies Capital includes Several Prominent Venture Firms and Angel Investors; Company Developing 4D+ Vision Chip for Automotive and Industrial Customers

MONROVIA, Calif., March 5, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — SiLC Technologies, Inc., (SiLC), the leading developer of integrated single-chip FMCW LiDAR solutions, today announced that it closed $12 million in seed funding led by Dell Technologies Capital. Decent Capital, ITIC Ventures, and several prominent angel investors also participated in the funding round. SiLC will use the funding to scale its R&D and operations to develop its frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) silicon photonic 4D+ Vision Chip platform.

point cloud taken with SiLC's 4D+ Vision Chip detects a rooftop security camera post at 190m and a lamp post at 250 meters
At CES 2020, a point cloud taken with SiLC’s 4D+ Vision Chip detects a rooftop security camera post at 190m and a lamp post at 250 meters.

SiLC was founded in 2018 by silicon photonics Industry veterans.  Founder and CEO Mehdi Asghari was part of the executive team that led Bookham to its IPO in 2000 and later joined the leadership team at Kotura, which was acquired by Mellanox in 2013.  SiLC has developed a significant body of intellectual property, as well as a proprietary process for manufacturing high-performance optical components at large scale.

“Integrating all essential functions necessary to build an FMCW chip on a cost-effective silicon platform represents the holy grail of LiDAR,” said Daniel Docter, Managing Director, Dell Technologies Capital. “SiLC’s team has over twenty years of experience and a proven track record commercializing silicon photonics solutions. After looking at more than 30 different LiDAR companies, we found SiLC to be the only company that has a viable approach for large-scale adoption of LiDAR in automotive and industrial robotics.”

The announcement follows a successful showing at CES 2020, where SiLC demonstrated the industry’s first fully-integrated FMCW chip and an unprecedented long-range LiDAR resolution. Utilizing its second-generation FMCW silicon photonics 4D+ Vision Chip to generate scans, SiLC was able to detect objects smaller than one and a half inches at a range of nearly 200 meters, translating to an effective resolution of around 0.01 degrees vertically and horizontally. This level of performance capability can enable a vehicle traveling at highway speed to stop or avoid objects at more than 200 meters range, a critical aspect of autonomous vehicle navigation and safety.

“This is my third startup and by far the most exciting, both at a technology level and the size of the markets it addresses. We believe we have an opportunity to transform several industries,” said Mehdi Asghari, founder and CEO, SiLC. “Our 4D+ Vision Chip technology will not only make LiDAR a commercial reality but will also enable applications ranging from robotics to AR/VR to biometric scanning.”

SiLC’s advanced production-ready 4D+ Vision Chip exceeds the performance metrics, such as range, resolution, accuracy offered by most LiDARs in a much smaller footprint, while adding critical vector measurements such as velocity, light polarization, and reflectivity.

“SiLC enables a dramatic advancement to 4D imaging and associated LiDAR technology while enabling a much needed cost volume scaling that follows the dynamics of the semiconductor industry,” said Liqing Zeng chairman of Decent Capital and co-founder of Tencent Holdings Ltd., one of China’s most valuable corporations. “We see incredible growth potential for SiLC, especially considering the experience and track record of the team.”

For more information about SiLC visit www.silc.com.

About SiLC Technologies
SiLC Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of highly integrated FMCW LiDAR solutions, located in MonroviaSouthern California. The company’s initial focus is on its integrated 4D+ Vision Chip, which has demonstrated a range of beyond 300 meters and applicable to a wide range of applications. Founded by a group of highly experienced industry veterans with over 20 years of commercial product development and manufacturing heritage, SiLC utilizes a proprietary silicon-based semiconductor fabrication process to manufacture its chips and standard, automated IC style assembly processes, enabling robust, cost-effective and compact solutions. Please visit us at SiLC.com.

About Dell Technologies Capital
Dell Technologies Capital is the global venture capital investment arm of Dell Technologies. The investment team backs passionate early stage founders who push the envelope on technology innovation for enterprises. Since inception in 2012, the team has sustained an investment pace of $150 million a year and has invested in more than 100 startups, 40 of which have been acquired and 5 have gone public. Portfolio companies also gain unique access to the go-to-market capabilities of Dell Technologies (Dell, Dell EMC, VMWare, Pivotal, RSA, Secureworks). Notable investments include Adallom, Arista Networks, Cylance, Docusign, Graphcore, JFrog, MongoDB, Netskope, Nutanix, RedLock, RiskRecon, TwistLock, Wavefront and Zscaler. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, Dell Technologies Capital has offices in BostonAustin, and Israel. For more information visit www.delltechcapital.com.

SiLC and Varroc Lighting Systems to Demonstrate Seamless Integration of LiDAR in Production Headlamp at CES 2020

SiLC and Varroc Lighting Systems to Demonstrate Seamless Integration of LiDAR in Production Headlamp at CES 2020

SiLC also will demonstrate a 200+ meter LiDAR scan based on its second-generation FMCW silicon photonics 4D+ Vision Chip
Monrovia, Calif. and Plymouth, Mich., December 5, 2019 – SiLC Technologies, Inc., (SiLC), the leading provider of integrated single-chip FMCW LiDAR solutions, and Varroc Lighting Systems, a leading global supplier of innovative exterior vehicle lighting systems and electronics, today announced they will demonstrate a seamless LiDAR integration into a production automotive headlamp at CES 2020.
Varroc Press Release picture final3.png
The Varroc Lighting Systems headlamp is based on a sophisticated production LED design and leverages four of SiLC’s silicon photonics FMCW vision chips providing a full 20 x 80-degree field of view (FOV) per headlamp. 

SiLC’s compact LiDAR chip architecture can be inconspicuously embedded anywhere on a vehicle for optimal vision and safety. SiLC’s 4D+ Vision Chip integrates all required functionality, such as a coherent light source and optical signal processing, to enable significant additional information to be extracted from the returning photons before their conversion to electrons. SiLC’s vision sensor can detect height, width, distance, reflectivity, velocity, and light polarization of objects. The coherent interferometric sensing approach improves achievable accuracy by orders of magnitude over existing technologies. SiLC’s 4D+ Vision Chip can detect low reflectance objects beyond 200 meters surrounding a vehicle, providing enough time for a vehicle to avoid an obstacle at highway speeds.

“Varroc Lighting Systems is proud to showcase a milestone in embedded automotive LiDAR with SiLC, a leader in LiDAR innovation,” said Todd Morgan, Senior Vice President of Product Development for Varroc Lighting Systems.  “We believe automotive lamps provide the optimum integration point for sensors at the four corners of the vehicle and at CES 2020 we are providing a glimpse into the future of automotive navigation combined with aesthetic design.”

“SiLC is excited to showcase its 4D+ Vision Chip at CES 2020 in partnership with Varroc Lighting Systems, and demonstrate the accuracy, range and elegance of embedded FMCW LiDAR in an automotive application,” said SiLC CEO Dr. Mehdi Asghari. “Our integrated LiDAR chip offers the most compact, cost-effective, eye-safe and accurate LiDAR solution available to meet autonomous vehicle safety and affordability requirements.”

SiLC also will demonstrate a 200+ meter LiDAR scan, showcasing the long range and accuracy of its 4D+ Vision Chip. 

The demonstrations will take place at SiLC’s Westgate Hotel penthouse suite from Tuesday, January 7 through Friday, January 10. 

Interested potential business partners should contact SiLC at contact@SiLC.com to schedule an appointment. 

Interested reporters and analysts should contact  contact@SiLC.com to schedule a demonstration and briefing.   

About SiLC Technologies
SiLC Technologies, Inc. is a leading provider of highly integrated FMCW LiDAR solutions, located in Monrovia, Southern California. The company’s initial focus is on integrated 4D+ vision sensors targeting a wide range of applications. Founded by a group of highly experienced industry veterans with over 20 years of commercial product development and manufacturing heritage, SiLC utilizes a proprietary silicon-based semiconductor fabrication process to manufacture its chips and standard, automated IC style assembly processes, enabling robust, cost-effective and compact solutions. Please visit us at SiLC.com.

About Varroc Lighting Systems
Varroc Lighting Systems is a leading global supplier of innovative automobile and two-wheeler lighting solutions. Focused on safety, mobility and style, Varroc Lighting Systems brings leading-edge technology to the mainstream automotive market with high-quality and cost-competitive solutions. Headquartered in Plymouth, Michigan, U.S., the company has more than 8,000 employees worldwide with operations in Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. Varroc Lighting Systems is a key member of the Varroc Group family of automotive components business. 

Media Contacts: 
Ralf Muenster for SiLC Technologies, Inc. 
contact@SiLC.com

Jackie Chizuk for Varroc Lighting Systems 
media@varroclighting.com

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