News: Microelectronics
13 February 2024
UK tech firms start commercial negotiations at SEMICON Korea
Alongside a UK Government Department for Business & Trade mission at the SEMICON Korea event in Seoul (31 January – 2 February), as part of the Government-funded UK–APAC Tech Growth Programme seven British tech companies had 51 introductory business development meetings with South Korean corporations, resulting in several now being engaged in commercial negotiations with potential Korean customers and partners.
The companies include:
- Cambridge-based Paragraf, which is claimed to be the first company in the world to mass produce graphene-based electronic devices using standard semiconductor processes;
- Cambridge-based Pragmatic, the developer of a flexible integrated circuit platform using thin-film semiconductors rather than silicon;
- Oxford Instruments, which supplies a range of scientific equipment; and
- QuInAs, a Lancaster University spin-out using compound semiconductors and quantum mechanics to produce a universal memory that is ultra efficient in terms of power and speed.
The other participating companies — EpiValence, Moisture Control & Measurement (MCM) and the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) — also had constructive initial discussions on which they plan to build in the coming months.
“The UK–APAC Tech Growth Programme team provided an invaluable and effective service in facilitating key strategic meetings with companies in the Korean memory sector,” comments QuInAs’ founder & CEO James Ashworth-Pook.
“The thirst for UK technology in Korea was underlined by the response to the innovative technologies offered by all the UK companies we supported during SEMICON Korea,” says Jeremy Shaw, head of the UK–APAC Tech Growth Programme at international business development consultancy Intralink. “We look forward to helping many more UK tech scale-ups realise their potential in the APAC region during 2024.”
Backed jointly by the UK Government’s Department for Business & Trade and the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology initiative and delivered by Intralink, the UK–APAC Tech Growth Programme aims to help UK tech scale-ups with significant international growth potential to explore and secure commercial opportunities in the APAC region. Specifically, it provides support for UK firms to expand in 11 APAC markets: South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand. Intralink’s teams on the ground in APAC can identify participants’ business opportunities, provide market entry advice and help companies to sell their products, forge partnerships and raise investment.
