FGPA startup stops operations, seeks buyer

CSwitch president and CEO Doug Laird told EE Times that investors made the decision to temporarily halt operations sometime within the last few weeks. The move was made to conserve cash as investors initiated efforts to sell the company, Laird said.

Laird said CSwitch is in negotiations with multiple companies interested in acquiring the firm. Because the negotiations are ongoing, Laird said he could not provide further details at this time.

"There is quite a bit of interest" in the company, Laird said.

CSwitch is one of several recent programmable logic startups offering promising technology. These companies are trying to defy the odds, facing fierce competition from entrenched competitors, a brutal downturn that has OEMs carefully vetting suppliers and a history of failed entrants in the programmable logic space.

Two programmable logic vendors, Ambric Inc. and MathStar Inc., ceased operations last year as financial resources ran dry.

CSwitch made a big splash in 2006 when it emerged to unveil a novel configurable array architecture that promised to deliver levels of flexibility not previously available in programmable products, said to narrow the gap between FPGAs and ASICs. CSwitch's CS90 Configurable switch array started shipping last year, according to Laird.

CSwitch is venture-backed, having secured almost $60 million in funding from a group that includes Micron Technology Inc. and venture capital firms Bay Partners, Charles River Ventures, ATA Ventures, GF Private Equity Group LLC, Harris and Harris Group Inc. and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital Co. Ltd.

- Dylan McGrath
EE Times