China seeks to accelerate More-than-Moore in Silicon Valley

Shanghai Industrial µTechnology Research Institute (SITRI), the innovation center for accelerating the development and commercialization of "More-than-Moore" (MtM) solutions to power the Internet of Things (IoT), today announced the opening of SITRI Innovations in Belmont, California. This new kind of hardware accelerator was launched into the Bay Area's rich technology ecosystem during a recent event attended by many of Silicon Valley's leading investors, technologists, entrepreneurs, and incubators.

SITRI Innovations addresses a gap that exists in the current “More-than-Moore” and IoT innovation ecosystem and provides a path for new entrepreneurs in the hardware space to bring their ideas to fruition. “More than Moore” is the next wave of semiconductor innovations such as MEMS, Sensors, Optoelectronics, RF, Bio, and micro-Energy that do not depend on feature-size driven CMOS technology (the “Moore’s Law”). The first of its kind for “More-than-Moore” and IoT hardware startups, SITRI provides entrepreneurs a full spectrum of services and resources designed to help them succeed in their development and commercialization phases.

“The Internet of Things represents a vast opportunity and “More-than-Moore” technologies are at the heart of it,” said Charles Yang, CEO of SITRI Group. “However, the MtM silicon innovations needed require a fusion of multi-disciplinary technologies which raises a new set of challenges in engineering and manufacturing, leaving the market open to only the largest and most sophisticated companies. SITRI Innovations addresses this by speeding up MtM innovation and commercialization, opening the IoT market to a much broader range of players and their ideas.”

By tapping into the global ecosystem for the MtM industry, SITRI Innovations can provide startups with the resources of large corporations to access the R&D platform and critical supply chain partners needed to achieve high efficiency and fast time to market. SITRI’s unique 360-degree platform offers support to the startups in all areas, from proof of concept to engineering to fab to market studies and industry supply chain.

“As a leading factor in the transition to the “More-than-Moore” era, MEMS represent a huge future opportunity in the consumer, mobile, wearables, healthcare, biotech, and IoT markets,” said Dr. Kurt Peterson of the Silicon Valley Band of Angels, a veteran in the semiconductor and MEMS industry. “By serving as an innovation catalyst to the “More than Moore” community, SITRI will be a key element in the future growth of the MEMS industry as well as the overall semiconductor market.”

A group of venture funds will be co-located with SITRI Innovations in its Belmont, California, offices including SummitView Capital, SVC Angel, Tsing Capital, Nautilus Ventures, TEEC Angel Fund, Oriza Ventures, Cenova Ventures, Magic Stone Alternative Investments, Cybernaut Investment, and Jiading Ventures.