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Morse Micro

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Morse Micro Pty. Ltd.
Company typePrivate
IndustryWi-Fi
Founded2016; 8 years ago (2016)
Sydney, Australia
FoundersMichael de Nil
Andrew Terry
Headquarters
Sydney
,
Australia
Key people
Michael de Nil (CEO)
Andrew Terry (CTO)
Marin Peplinksi (CPO)
Phillip Kumin (SVP Worldwide Sales)
Neil Weste (VP Engineering)
David Goodall (VP Standards)
Prakash Guda (VP Marketing)
Ray Stata (board member)
Mike Nicholls (board member)
Products
Websitewww.morsemicro.com
Founder Michael de Nil, Minister Angus Taylor and co-founder Andrew Terry, at Morse Micro offices in Picton, south of Sydney, soon after winning their seed funding grant in 2017. Taylor holds a prototype of their Wi-Fi HaLow chip.

Morse Micro is a Sydney-based developer of Wi-Fi HaLow microprocessors; chips that enable high data rates, with long range and low power consumption.[1][2] Amongst all Wi-Fi HaLow systems on a chip, Morse Micro processors are reported to be the smallest, fastest, longest-range with lowest-power-use.[3][4]

The main application of the technology is machine-to-machine communications. With the Internet of things expected to extend to 30 billion devices by 2025, this represents a steeply growing number of users of the technology.[5] The founders plan to be part of "expanding Wi-Fi so it can go into everything, every smoke alarm, every camera."[1]

The firm has its global HQ in Sydney, which is also its main base for R&D, with additional centres in the United States, China, India, the United Kingdom and, from 2024, an operations centre in Taiwan.[6][7][2][8] As of 2022, Morse Micro was producing more semiconductors than any other Australian-based tech company.[9]

Technology

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After eight years' development, the company's Wifi HalLow processor was reported to deliver 10 times the range of conventional Wi-Fi technology, and able to function for several years before needing battery change.[10]

Data rates and range

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The microprocessor allows for a range of data rates, depending on the modulation and coding scheme (MCS) used.[4] This can be as low as 150 kilobits per second (Kbps) using MCS 10 with BPSK modulation, to a top rate of 4 megabits per second (Mbps) using MCS 9 at 256 quadrature amplitude modulation.[11]

The chip uses low-bandwidth wireless network protocols, operating in the 1 GHz spectrum, while providing a communications range of 1,000 metres.[12] In one field test, researchers found the technology could sustain high speed data transmission between a device placed by the north end of Sydney Harbour Bridge and a device across the harbour at Sydney Opera House.[2] The company claims their chip provides 10 times the range, 100 times the area and 1000 times the volume of data offered by traditional wi-fi.[13]

Connectivity and energy

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To enable networked communications between machines, a single Wi-Fi HaLow Access Point can securely connect up to 8,191 devices.[14] Applications for the WiFi HaLow technology includes the Internet of things, which may include solutions for in the home (such as lighting, monitoring and smart door locks) and in industry (such as vehicle management, high-end security and supply chain asset tracking.[15][16][17] Looking at its scalability, one American technical review made this assessment:

That's ample capacity to connect every LED bulb, light switch, smart door lock, motorized window shade, thermostat, smoke detector, solar panel, security camera, or any imaginable smart-home device for the foreseeable future.[4]

Physically, the company's microchip is one-fifth the size of a traditional Wi-Fi processor.[12] It uses very little energy, consuming a fraction of the power consumed by traditional chips, which is achieved by periodically waking and reporting.[18][12] As such, the chips can operate for several years on a single coin-size battery. In 2020, the first generation of Morse Micro microchips went into production in Taiwan.[19] The company has onshore design and fabrication of composite semiconductors in Australia, which has been assessed as a strategic capability.[20][21]

As of late 2022, the market for Wi-Fi Ha Low products appeared to be expanding, from those developing industrial IoT in the Japanese market which, "deploy thousands of devices in warehouses which use sensors and actuators."[17]

Wi-Fi and Wi-Fi HaLow compared[4]
Function Wi-Fi 4/5/6

(IEEE 802.11n/ac/ax)

Wi-Fi HaLow

(IEEE 802.11ah)

Operating frequency bands 2.4 GHz, 5 GHz, 6 GHz Sub-1 GHz (902 to 928 MHz in U.S.)
Chanel-width choices 20, 40, 80, 160 MHz 1, 2, 4, 8, (16 optional) MHz
Maximum addressable stations per access point 2,007 8,191
Single-stream MCS data-rate range 6.5 to 150 Mbps (802.11n, Wi-Fi 4) 150 Kbps to 86.7 Mbps
Typical range

(compared to 802.11n at 20 MHz)

~ 100m > 1,000m (10x range, 100x area)

History

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"Wi-Fi was invented over 20 years ago in Australia and over that time we have seen it go into every laptop, phone and tablet, and all of that came from people in Australia. Today we are opening it up and expanding Wi-Fi so it can go into everything, every smoke alarm, every camera." — Andrew Terry, founder, speaking to The Sydney Morning Herald in 2017[1]

The founding partners of Morse Micro, Andrew Terry and Michael De Nil met while working for Broadcom, the largest supplier of integrated circuits for communications.[1] De Nil said they noticed that chips designed for phones and laptops were being used for machine-to-machine communication and "that wasn't working very well."[22] They decided to create a new kind of microprocessor, specifically for the Internet of things.[12]

Morse Micro Pty Ltd was established as a private company, limited by guarantee, in August 2016. The founders were later joined by several significant engineers, including:

  • Professor Neil Weste the founder of Radiata Networks who had created the first 802.11a Wi-Fi chip[12]
  • Dr. John O'Sullivan (engineer) radio astronomer who led the team who invented Wi-Fi at CSIRO in the 1980s[23][24]
  • Dr. David Goodall, a design engineer at Radiata, which created the first commercial WiFi chip[12]

By late 2023, the company employed 180 people across Australia, the United States, China, India, UK, Singapore and Taiwan.[25][26][6] From this point the focus of market expansion became Japan, through its Japanese investor MegaChips.[25] Security cameras became a key application, which was recognised with the global industry award, the IoT Product of the Year, in 2022 and 2023.[27] The Australian Financial Review reported from 2024 that Morse Micro was ameliorating for geopolitical risk by maintaining two supply chains for chips and components, one from mainland China, the other Taiwan, with assembly and warehousing in Singapore.[6] The Singapore facility began operations in August 2023, and had produced over 2 million chips by November of that year.[7]

Investors

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The Australian Government provided the founders with seed funding in 2017 as they believed Morse Micro has the "first WiFi HaLow silicon chip that securely connects smart devices over long distances."[28] It is reported to be the best-funded Wi-Fi HaLow technology companies, with large investors from Japan, the United States and a spread of Australian retirement funds.[29][30] By 15 February 2023, the company had an estimated value of US$700 million, just over A$1 billion.[31]

Series A investment, 2019

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In May 2019, Series A funding was provided in by a suite of investors. These included the Clean Energy Innovation Fund and CSIRO Innovation Fund, part of the Australian scientific research agency credited with inventing Wi-Fi in 1997.[32][33] Investment also came from American entrepreneur Ray Stata of Analog Devices, Blackbird Ventures, Main Sequence Ventures, Right Click Capital, Kim Jackson and her husband Scott Farquhar through Skip Capital, Lucy and Malcolm Turnbull; and Uniseed, the venture fund of UniSuper. This tranche totalled A$42 million.[2][33]

Series B investment 2022

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By September 2022 the company had announced its Series B round of A$140 million, later extended to A$170 million, attracting intense investor interest.[34][35] The investment round was led by Japanese chip design and manufacturing giant MegaChips, with further investment from its incumbent investors, which is known to include several Australian superannuation groups, such as TelstraSuper, HESTA, Hostplus and NGS (managed by Blackbird Ventures) and UniSuper (managed by Uniseed).[25][36][10]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d Waters, Cara (27 May 2019). "Chipping in: Morse Micro raises $24m as it taps next Wi-Fi revolution". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d Waters, Cara (23 November 2020). "'Awesome and crazy': Wi-Fi potential a hit with Morse Micro investors". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  3. ^ "Australia's Morse Micro raises $140m in Series B funding | AsiaTechDaily - Asia's Leading Tech and Startup Media Platform". 7 September 2022. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  4. ^ a b c d "StackPath". www.mwrf.com. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
  5. ^ Hetting, Claus (20 November 2022). "Future of Wi-Fi: Getting Your Enterprise Ready for the Internet of Things - with Wi-Fi HaLow". Wi-Fi NOW Global. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
  6. ^ a b c "Aussie tech pushes into China, Taiwan despite geopolitical risks". Australian Financial Review. 28 April 2024. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
  7. ^ a b Bennett, Tess (21 November 2023). "Aussie chipmaker eyes payoff from $80m investment". Australian Financial Review.
  8. ^ "Morse Micro keeps HQ, R&D in Aust". InnovationAus.com. 30 May 2019. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  9. ^ "Innovation journey gets Sydney chipmaker to $140m raise". InnovationAus.com. 7 September 2022. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  10. ^ a b "This 'deep tech' Aussie chipmaker just raised $170m". Australian Financial Review. 27 November 2022. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
  11. ^ "Wi-Fi HaLow™—Worth the wait | Wi-Fi Alliance". www.wi-fi.org. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  12. ^ a b c d e f Turner, Adam (29 August 2017). "Aussie start-up's Wi-Fi HaLow chips set to unite the internet of things". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
  13. ^ "Morse Micro Names Vahid Manian as Chief Operations Officer". www.businesswire.com. 28 May 2020. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
  14. ^ "Australia-based Wi-Fi HaLow leader Morse Micro readies itself for growth". Wi-Fi NOW Global. 29 June 2022. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  15. ^ "Morse Micro dodges semiconductor crisis thanks to strong links to Asia". Australian Financial Review. 8 August 2021. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
  16. ^ Simmons, David (7 September 2022). "Extending Wi-Fi range 10-fold". Business News Australia. Retrieved 7 October 2022.
  17. ^ a b "Aussie chipmaker banks huge raise from Japanese giant". Australian Financial Review. 6 September 2022. Retrieved 22 October 2022.
  18. ^ Nicholls, Mike (30 October 2017). "Morse Micro & Main Sequence Ventures". Main Sequence Ventures. Retrieved 8 October 2022.
  19. ^ "填補戶外移動應用不足 Wi-Fi 802.11ah「悄悄」來襲". 電子工程專輯. 1 April 2019. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
  20. ^ Munro, Bronte (23 January 2023). "Australia can help fill the gap in the US semiconductor supply chain". The Strategist. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
  21. ^ University of Sydney Nano Institute (December 2020). "Australian Semiconductor Sector study" (PDF). University of Sydney Nano Institute. NSW Government Chief Scientist & Engineer: 17.
  22. ^ ""We can start selling millions of these": How Morse Micro scored $24 million from high-profile Aussie investors". SmartCompany. 28 May 2019. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
  23. ^ "How Australian engineers solved one of wireless networking's biggest problems to make WiFi". Create. 12 August 2019. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
  24. ^ Sygall, David (7 December 2009). "How Australia's top scientist earned millions from Wi-Fi". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
  25. ^ a b c "Aussie chipmaker banks huge raise from Japanese giant". Australian Financial Review. 6 September 2022. Retrieved 27 September 2022.
  26. ^ "Aussie chipmaker eyes payoff from $80m investment". Australian Financial Review. 20 November 2023. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
  27. ^ "Morse Micro Wins Industrial IoT Product of the Year Award for Wi-Fi HaLow Based Security Cameras". everythingRF. 4 April 2023. Retrieved 28 April 2023.
  28. ^ "Morse Micro – reinventing Wi‑Fi for Internet of Things (IoT) | business.gov.au". www.business.gov.au. 26 June 2020. Retrieved 9 August 2020.
  29. ^ "Morse Micro Supercharges its Series B Funding Round with AU $30 Million Top-up from Major Superannuation Funds and Others". au.finance.yahoo.com. 28 November 2022. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
  30. ^ "Taking action". FS Super. 12 January 2022. Retrieved 3 December 2022.
  31. ^ Staff, Verdict (15 February 2023). "Revealing the 10 biggest smart city funding deals of 2022". Verdict. Retrieved 4 September 2023.
  32. ^ Palmer-Derrien, Stephanie (28 May 2019). ""We can start selling millions of these": How Morse Micro scored $24 million from high-profile Aussie investors". SmartCompany. Retrieved 9 October 2022.
  33. ^ a b Daily, Startup (6 September 2022). "Morse Micro chips into huge $140 million series B". Startup Daily. Retrieved 9 October 2022.
  34. ^ Croft, Lauren (16 October 2022). "Morse Micro receives $140m funding injection". Lawyers Weekly.
  35. ^ Jones, Tegan (1 December 2022). "Nine Aussie startups that raised more than $104 million this week". SmartCompany. Retrieved 9 December 2022.
  36. ^ "Super funds add an extra $30m to Morse Micro Series B". Business News Australia. Retrieved 5 June 2024.
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