Cavendish Kinetics develops high-performance RF MEMS radio components, including its SmarTune tuners with a MIPI RFFE interface. Its first-generation RF MEMS tuners have fully ramped and been shipping in volume since 2014, and the company cites MEMS cycle life beyond 100 billion cycles. The firm is introducing a new generation that adds virtually loss-less RF MEMS switches and increases tuning range and RF voltage handling. Those components target radio front-end applications such as antenna, filter and power amplifier tuning and ultra-low loss switching of the RF signal path. Samples of the new generation were scheduled for availability in Q1 2016, with volume production planned for the second half of 2016. Cavendish is headquartered in San Jose, CA, and maintains offices in Dallas, China, Korea, and the Netherlands. Cavendish Kinetics designs RF MEMS tuning solutions (SmarTuners) for mobile and wearable devices to improve radio performance, data throughput and battery life. Its SmarTuners have been qualified beyond 50 billion cycles and have been shipping in volume since 2014. The company announced its first commercial product launch earlier this year and is securing customer design-wins, including the nubia Z7 LTE smartphone which uses Cavendish’s tuner to meet China Mobile’s 2GHz LTE requirements. Cavendish says its solutions address spectrum and battery-efficiency challenges in smartphones and wireless networks. The company operates offices in San Jose, CA as well as Korea, Taiwan, China and The Netherlands. Recent funding will support scaling customer engagements and product adoption. Cavendish Kinetics designs and manufactures tunable RF components based on its proprietary NanoMech™ process technology. Its initial products target antenna tuners and impedance-matching devices for mobile devices, with sampling expected early in 2012. The company partners with major semiconductor, module, and handset makers to create tunable RF front ends that help meet size, performance, and cost challenges across global mobile networks. Cavendish said it will use the financing proceeds to produce RF tuning products based on NanoMech. The company has offices in The Netherlands and San Jose, California. Management named in the release includes CEO Dennis Yost and chairman Luiz Arzubi, and the board was expanded to include RF industry veterans Paul Dal Santo and Moiz Beguwala. Cavendish Kinetics develops Nanomech micro-mechanical memory elements and integrates them into standard CMOS to provide embedded non-volatile memory. The company is shifting development emphasis to embedded non-volatile re-programmable Nanomech-based memory and states its embedded flash technology is positioned to meet demands for ultra-low power, robust CMOS-compatible embedded NVM. Target application markets include automotive, microcontroller, and analog/mixed-signal applications. Cavendish aims to expand its market presence among IDMs, fabless semiconductor companies and CMOS foundries. The company is a spin-off of Cambridge University and was founded by Professor Charles G. Smith. The new funding will be used to continue development of Nanomech technology and expand market presence.

Total raised

$69M

Funding rounds

4

Latest round

Equity

Latest activity

Aug 2015