Helix Semiconductors, formerly Semitrex, is an

Irvine, California Irvine () is a master-planned city in South Orange County, California, United States, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. The Irvine Company started developing the area in the 1960s and the city was formally incorporated on December 28, 197 ...

-based fabless semiconductor company that designs chips for improved power management. The company's patented

capacitive A capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy in an electric field by virtue of accumulating electric charges on two close surfaces insulated from each other. It is a passive electronic component with two terminals. The effect of a c ...

voltage reduction technology uses cascading capacitors to store power and convert voltages on chips, reducing the energy consumption of electronic devices. The company also has offices throughout the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

and in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

History

Semitrex was founded in 2012 in

Tulsa, Oklahoma Tulsa () is the second-largest city in the state of Oklahoma and 47th-most populous city in the United States. The population was 413,066 as of the 2020 census. It is the principal municipality of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area, a region with ...

by Michael H. Freeman, an Emmy Award-winning designer of mobile video technology that became the basis for the

802.11n IEEE 802.11n-2009 or 802.11n is a wireless-networking standard that uses multiple antennas to increase data rates. The Wi-Fi Alliance has also retroactively labelled the technology for the standard as Wi-Fi 4. It standardized support for multipl ...

wireless standard. The company's technology development efforts started with a search for improving the battery life of mobile phones, which led to power saving technology discoveries using capacitor-based circuits. The company relocated to Laguna Beach, CA, and in February 2015 exited stealth mode and announced its technology. By that time, the company had filed 46 patents for its capacitive voltage reduction technology, which it called Muxcapacitor. In March 2015, the company's integrated circuit (IC) was reportedly on its third generation, which the company announced was the last prototype before sample chips would be released to the market. In July 2015, Semitrex hired Washington DC lawfirm Hogan Lovells to lobby for energy efficiency issues. In February 2016, the company opened a design center in

's "Technology Corridor", and an office in

Milan, Italy Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city ...

, for better access to local engineering talent. The Milan office, also a design center, was reportedly focusing on

mixed-signal A mixed-signal integrated circuit is any integrated circuit that has both analog circuits and digital circuits on a single semiconductor die.power inverter A power inverter, inverter or invertor is a power electronic device or circuitry that changes direct current (DC) to alternating current (AC). The resulting AC frequency obtained depends on the particular device employed. Inverters do the opp ...

s to support the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

's 2009 Renewable Energy Directive. In March 2017, the company rebranded as Helix Semiconductors, and Harold Blomquist was announced as the company's new CEO and President.

Products/Technology

Muxcapacitor

The company's core semiconductor product is used for energy efficient power supplies. Its patented gate switch technology, called Muxcapacitor, is pre-

regulation Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...

capacitive voltage reduction technology which uses cascading capacitors to more efficiently store power on a chip. Some capacitor banks are shut down when not in use, conserving power. The device also reduces the primary voltage through a transformer before the energy is processed for voltage and current adjustment and isolation. This reduces the size of the transformer and limits the need for secondary parts. Also, by using capacitive rather than inductive reductions, the need for magnets is eliminated, and very efficient high voltage conversions are achieved across a range of

electrical load An electrical load is an electrical component or portion of a circuit that consumes (active) electric power, such as electrical appliances and lights inside the home. The term may also refer to the power consumed by a circuit. This is opposed ...

Tronium PSSoC

Muxcapacitor technology is used on the company's Tronium brand of Power Supply System on a Chip (PSSoC), to manage power and reduce energy consumption for electronic devices. The Tronium PSSoC includes a dial-a-voltage feature which allows the chip to be programmed for a range of outputs from 1.8 to 48 volts, eliminating the need for additional country-specific power supplies. It also includes primary side regulation technology that eliminates the need for the opto-couplers which are traditionally required to maintain constant voltage and transfer electrical signals in the presence of high voltages. This reduces part count, allowing cost and size reductions of electrical equipment. The company sells a transformer-free Tronium variation called pwIoT (p-watt) designed for Internet of Things-type connected devices, which are often required to be compact to support a particular application. It takes AC line voltage and reduces it to the level of voltage the sensor requires. Products designed to work with minimal standby power requirements conserve energy and help solve the problem of vampire power drain, so-called because it drains while a machine or device is inactive. The pwIoT can be controlled remotely and wirelessly.

Inverter Supply System on a Chip

In June 2016, the company announced it was working in London on the reverse of the power supply process, with the Inverter Supply System on a Chip (ISSoC). While the core Tronium technology is designed to reduce energy consumption with high to low voltage power converters, the company began exploring the feasibility of designing an inverter to take low voltage DC, which typically comes from renewable energy sources, and boost it to high voltage AC. A so-called micro-inverter would help countries meet the EU's renewable energy application requirements.

Awards and recognition

In 2015, while still operating as Semitrex, the company received the 2015 Frost & Sullivan “New Product Innovation for Powering the Internet of Things” Award. Their technology was also recognized at APEC 2016 (Applied Power Electronics Conference) as one of the “Top Ten Must-Have Innovations”.

References

{{reflist, 30em

External links

Official website

EE Power website

Maker Pro website

Electronics Point website
Semiconductor companies of the United States Technology companies based in Greater Los Angeles Companies based in Irvine, California Technology companies established in 2012 2012 establishments in California