World-First Superconductive Integrated Circuit Design Tool Secures R12.5M IDC Seed Funding

NioCAD, a firm of Stellenbosch engineers and scientists credited with the world’s first end-to-end design automation tool for building superconductive integrated circuits, has secured R12.5 million in second-round funding from South Africa’s Industrial Development Corporation (IDC). This funding is intended for the commercialisation of the product by February.

Almost three years ago, NioCAD obtained R8.1 million in first-round product development funding from the Innovation Fund. 

The case for superconductive technology

NioCAD CEO Retief Gerber explains that, as current processor and telecoms technologies approach their physical performance limits, the demand for greater power and bandwidth continues unabated. Superconductive electronics makes the strongest case for taking circuit technology to the next level. 

Gerber says applications for the technology – current and emerging – are tremendously exciting. “It has the potential to fast-track fields as diverse as supercomputing, telecoms and life-like 3D virtual reality with sub-TeraHertz processor core speeds functioning at low switching power. Sensor and imaging applications will also benefit, as superconductive circuits make for ultra-sensitive sensors.”

The problem

But the growth of the technology has been limited, principally due to the absence of integrated design automation tools for such circuits. “Manufacturers have worked around the problem by cobbling together custom-written design modules with semiconductor design tools. But this approach falls short in various ways,” he says.

Firstly, there are significant differences in the design methodologies, design architectures and manufacturing processes of semiconductor and superconductor technologies. Consequently superconductive design has been a labour-intensive process requiring manual integration and translation of data between tools. 

Gerber says the high level of skill required to use current tools further results in error-strewn designs. As a result, current tools and processes do not scale to commercial applications. 

The solution

NioCAD’s integrated architecture caters for all design needs, including schematic and cell-based design, circuit analysis and optimisation, as well as physical design. The software provides for integrated schematic versus physical verification and design and electrical rule checking – most of which are firsts in superconductive design. 

The integration of physical and schematic design by way of a unifying data model is entirely new, Gerber adds. This has the advantage of instantaneous backward and forward propagation of changes between the two environments, and makes circuit extraction and verification possible – which used to be done offline, even in semiconductor design tools. “For the first time, circuit optimisation can be done on the actual physical layout rather than symbolic models, making it possible to model critical components much more accurately,” Gerber notes. 

Finally, NioCAD’s database-driven data storage system makes it the first tool to offer design versioning and collaboration, in keeping with leading software development trends. 

Founding and funding history

Conceived at Stellenbosch University

NioCAD has a significant development history pre-dating its commercial launch (expected in February 2010). It began life in 2001 as a software project in a lab at the Electrical & Electronic Engineering Faculty of Stellenbosch University, overseen by Professor Willem Perold, a faculty member and company co-founder. The NioCAD research team, who went on to become its other co-founders, consisted of Gerber and Dr Coenrad Fourie.

Incubated by InnovUS

InnovUS, the Stellenbosch University-owned company responsible for the university’s technology transfer programmes and management of intellectual property created under its auspices, provided incubation support to Niocad. Anita Nel, CEO of InnovUS, says it assisted not only with NioCAD's intellectual property management, but was instrumental in its creation as a spin-off company. “InnovUS approached and liased with NioCAD’s funders, was responsible for legal expertise during negotiations and the drafting of agreements and provided interim-funding to support the newly formed company before the negotiations were concluded,” she says.

R&D funded by Innovation Fund

As NioCAD attained momentum, it became necessary to obtain external funding to expedite industrialisation of the product, for first-mover advantage in a global market. Thus, in 2006, it approached the state-owned Innovation Fund. In February 2007 TIF advanced R8.1 million in first-round research and development (R&D) funding, over a period of 2.5 years. 

Fund manager Ela Romanowska says the agreement stipulated taking the software from concept stage through to pre-production. “The idea was to develop it to the point where beta testing could begin.”

By July 2009 the team had discharged its responsibilities – ahead of time and with cash left over. “We are very excited about their prospects,” Romanowska says. “NioCAD is a great concept, definitely a world first, and they have a solid team bolstered by two stages of funding - from us and now the IDC.

Seed-funded by IDC

Having taken a significant step towards commercialisation, NioCAD reached a crucial stage in 2009, needing further funding to make the final step towards active market participation. In November, a year after initiating discussions with the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC), it succeeded in obtaining R12.5 million in second-round funding. 

Next big things

On the operational side, much work remains as the company moves into its first offices outside the faculty. Gerber and co must decide on distribution channels, produce user and training materials, establish support lines and devise licensing models. “The thing is to strike a balance,” says Gerber. “The software has a head-start of several years, but must hide much of that complexity under the hood. Pricing must be designed to stimulate demand, not saturate or alienate the market. We have to be responsive to customer support requirements.”

So watch this space. By mid-year 2010, expect these strategies to be bedded down firmly as this innovative South African outfit prepares to rock the computing world to its processing core.