From speculative university research to Silicon Valley Company and back

This talk provides a summary of the speaker's experience in the successful transfer what of began as speculative university research into commercial application. The early part of the talk briefly describes how was this was initially done as a result of joint research projects with a number of UK companies, including the benefits and limitations encountered. An overview is then given of his experiences in the creation and the growth of two high technology companies based on research done within his laboratory. The first of these, Audio Processing Technology Ltd. was established to commercialise one of the first published hi-fi audio compression algorithms, with its technology later to be used as the basis of Digital Theatre Sound (DTS), first used in the movie "Jurassic Park". The second, Amphion Semiconductor, was established to commercially develop research on innovative silicon architectures for Signal and Video Processing. Amphion is now a major supplier of SoC cores for video compression and was acquired by Connexant Systems Inc. in June 2004. The latter part of the talk provides a brief overview of the new #40M Institute of Electronics Communications and Information Technology [ECIT) which is located on the N. Ireland Science Park, adjacent to where the Titanic Cruise liner was built. This builds on the university's international expertise in electronics and computer science (www.ecit.qub.ac.uk). Its mission is to stimulate major opportunities for economic growth, by pioneering future directions and innovation in key areas of advanced technology through the integration of complementary research expertise in a world-leading facility. This cover the range from blue skies and applied research, through innovation and commercial development to strong links with industry and includes new company creation, both spin-off and spin-in, companies