14 DAY TRIAL // Motorola announced today that it made an equity investment in Siimpel Corporation, through its strategic venture capital arm, Motorola Ventures. Siimpel is a venture backed firm, leading producer of silicon MicroElectroMechanical System (MEMS) based solutions for mobile imaging applications. No financial terms regarding the investment were unveiled.
Personal mobile devices are in an ongoing development, heading towards more than basic mobile phones. Hence users need superior functionality from their devices and they expect different extra technologies integrated into mobile phones, like the ability to take digital photos at a superior quality. Traditional technologies used for stand-alone digital cameras are not successful when it comes to meeting the performance, cost, reliability, size and power of the mobile phone market. The MEMS solution from Siimpel will allow mobile devices to incorporate features like zoom, shutter and auto-focus in a low-cost, micro-scale system to provide best-in-class imaging performance.
"We are committed to nurturing new technologies that will enable innovative mobile experiences for consumers around the world", said Reese Schroeder, Managing Director at Motorola Ventures. "This investment will allow Siimpel to accelerate the production of its MEMS based solutions for handset cameras, bringing the handset even closer to true digital camera-like performance."
"Increased expectations of imaging systems in phone handsets, laptops, PDA's and micro-cameras has created a global demand for low cost micro-scale imaging systems", said Tony Tang, Chief Executive Officer of Siimpel. "We are actively collaborating with the world's leading consumer electronics, mobile communications and digital imaging leaders to deliver high-quality digital camera products that fit the size constraints of mobile platforms."
Siimpel is a California-based company specialized in micro-electro-mechanical systems, image sensors, electro-optical design, optics, packaging and camera electronics. It provides high-class imaging performance (faster time to focus, contrast and color, lower power drain) in the smallest possible form factor that is critical to enabling DSC (Digital Still Camera) like performance in different devices, including mobile phones.