We believe that our design changes are innovative and will reduce costs

CONOR McAULIFFE IS not new to the start-up market.

Ikon Semiconductor is his second start-up project. His first, Silansys Technologies, was sold to Frontier Silicon in

2005, two years after being set up. He remained remained with the firm until late last year.

However unlike Silansys, which was essentially a consultancy firm for the semiconductor industry, Ikon is product-based and is concentrating on developing new chips for LED lights.

McAuliffe believes demand for LEDs and other low-energy lights will increase sharply over the coming years and drew on more than 20 years experience in the semiconductor industry to research the market.

“I researched where the next wave of growth was coming from and learned that a lot will come from green technologies. I then focused on LED lighting. There are obvious concerns about energy use these days.”

He decided to concentrate on developing a new analogue chip used inside the light to convert mains electricity into the precise current required by LED lights to work efficiently. McAuliffe’s research has focused on producing a more efficient and lower cost chip.

Although still at the ‘proof of concept’ stage, he has been encouraged by the industry response during informal discussions.

“We believe that our design changes are innovative, physically smaller and will reduce costs.” He hopes to complete the research and lodge patent applications by the end of the year.

McAuliffe has been admitted to DIT’s Hothouse Venture Programme and has also applied for funding from Enterprise Ireland under its High Potential Start-up fund.

He says the company is “fabless”, meaning it will carry out product research, design and distribution but will contract out its manufacturing.

McAuliffe has funded the development of the company so far and says it is “very, very difficult to raise the kind of funding start-ups need at the moment”. He is looking at applying for Business Expansion Scheme support.