Steve: SiGEM (SGEM:CDN), founder is SiGe pioneer...
Here is one of the smaller variety for you (appreciate any additional DD that can be added): John Roberts, who founded Sige Microsystems with Dr. Houghton (developer of the Sige chip technology), is now heavily involved in SiGEM, which develops wearable, wireless devices for tracking people/objects/assets via the Web utilizing GPS and cellular. sigem.com
Got some funding from Newbridge Networks CEO Terry Matthews(located nearby in Kanata, Ontario) and Bell Mobility. SiGEM was up on 10X avg. volume last week chart.stockwatch.com
but no news ($1.40 U.S., 11 million shares out). Perhaps someone on this board can add some info to help complete the picture and provide more DD on this company. Based on my research, Roberts looks like one of the most experienced/connected technologists around and I would like to think "where there's smoke", etc...
Before he left Sige (now a major supplier to Motorola) to form SiGEM, the Ottawa paper did a background piece on him:
The Ottawa Citizen
Creating companies 'acts of madness': New company just the latest high-tech achievement for John Roberts
Compared to the half-dozen high-technology startups he's already launched, John Alvin Roberts nonchalantly describes "as the easiest" the recent sendoff of SiGe Microsystems Inc. of Nepean. A native of South Wales, he went to university with Newbridge Networks' supremo Terry Matthews. While their budding scientific interests led to different disciplines, their fascination with emerging technologies -- and how to market them -- kindled a lifetime association.
The two were among the legendary U.K. brain drain to Canada, when they were recruited to Ottawa by Microsystems International Ltd. (MIL), a subsidiary of Nortel Inc., formerly known as Northern Electric. Then came the "big bang" of 1974: roughly a thousand scientists were thrown out of work when Nortel decided manufacturing semiconductors in Canada had no future.
Mr. Matthews made his mark in telecommunications and Mr. Roberts stuck with silicon chips. But they remained social friends centred on their teenaged children. For example, the kids have ventured to Florida, Bermuda and other sunny locales courtesy of Mr. Matthews' private jet.
Mr. Roberts was president of the Strategic Microelectronics Consortium prior to co-founding SiGe. There, he was responsible for managing a $ 35-million co-operative research and development program. In 1983, he was involved in founding Calmos Systems (known later as Newbridge Microsystems Inc.), which was ringing up revenue of $ 7 million when Newbridge Networks bought it for $ 5 million in a stock swap that's now worth about $ 100 million. The company is now known as Tundra Semiconductor Corp.
Mr. Roberts' two other career stops after the demise of MIL were Kanata's Mosaid Inc. and Computing Devices Canada in Nepean. Not listed are a clutch of other entrepreneurial involvements. He played key roles in the start of Tetranet Software Inc., Quadrillion Corp. and Calnet Systems Inc. He was on the board of directors at Nepean's Skystone Systems Corp. when U.S. networking giant Cisco Systems Inc. bought the little-known firm for $ 124 million.
About SiGe
....compared to conventional silicon chips, SiGe chips work twice as fast, use less energy and operate at much higher frequencies. This makes them ideal for wireless communications ranging from cellular phones and other hand-held personal communication devices to global positioning systems (GPS) that act as navigational direction guides in the dash of the family car.
SiGe's ace in the hole is that the technology costs a fraction of the now dominant gallium arsenide process -- a feature noted recently in scientific literature such as the Gilder Technology Report and the lll-Vs Review.
As well, SiGe has sole commercial access for the next five years to the NRC's $ 2.5-million reactor, which is vital for the process. Add it all up, and the company's claim that it has at least a two-year lead over potential competitors is credible. "If our dreams of avarice come true, SiGe will have sales of $ 50 million in three years," predicts Mr. Roberts.
Dr. Houghton spent 11 years in NRC labs developing the SiGe device and earning worldwide recognition for his work from his peers and from major international corporations, including IBM.
But he was happily drawn into Mr. Roberts' entrepreneurial web as vice-president, process technology, as was David Edwards, SiGe's vice-president, finance, who previously worked at Newbridge Networks, Bell-Northern Research and MIL.
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