Multigig unveils new microchip clock technology

By Scott Hillis

SAN FRANCISCO: Does Silicon Valley need to learn how to tell time again?

Start-up Multigig Inc. unveiled a new clock technology for microchips on an

advance that sounds mundane but which could lead to electronics that use less

power yet can do more, prompting cheaper and smaller cell phones, for example.

Analysts say the company must refine its technology if it hopes to overcome

inexpensive, entrenched timing methods.

"This is fairly advanced technology, but it will be several years before

people really start using it in ways that allow you to start counting the

revenue and dollars from it," said Stephen Ohr, a semiconductor analyst at

Gartner.

A chip's clock -- basically an oscillating electrical pulse that provides

timing to regulate a chip's functions -- is a major source of power consumption,

in some cases counting for half of a processor's energy use.

"A completely new technique hasn't been developed in decades, but we

have a completely new method," said Haris Basit, Multigig's chief operating

officer.

"It is energy efficient, so you get more processing for the same amount

of power," Basit told Reuters in an interview.

Multigig is jumping into the semiconductor market just as attention on

performance is swinging from raw speed numbers to power efficiency, and it

claims its technology uses almost 90 percent less power than current products.

The shift is more than academic: Advanced Micro Devices Inc. has been

grabbing share from Intel Corp. in the market for PC microprocessors, thanks in

part to its more efficient chips.

With annual global chip production running in the tens of billions a year,

Multigig could find itself sitting pretty if it can prove its clocking method

works as advertised.

"It's a radically different way of doing things. I don't know if it's a

revolution, but it's radically different," said Will Strauss, principal

analyst at Forward Concepts, a market research firm.

"It's a new method of timing and that's something we have to have in all

kinds of semiconductor products."

Multigig's technology was developed by John Wood, a British inventor who

formed the company in 1999 and later moved it near California's Silicon Valley,

home to chip giants such as Intel and National Semiconductor Corp.

With scores of patents either granted or pending, Multigig hopes to license

its technology. In the meantime, it plans to jump-start the market by selling

its own line of timing devices and analog-digital converters, chips that are an

important part of mobile phones, medical imaging devices and military gear.

"They will dazzle a lot of engineers with this but it may not get them

to market fast," Gartner's Ohr said. "It's a bit of a dazzler but the

downside is it doesn't make you rich overnight."