Technology advance wins grant

Through its Smart Awards Scheme, the Department of Trade and Industry's Small Business Service has made a grant of £450,000 to Oxford Semiconductor.

This prestigious award recognises projects which demonstrate a significant technological advance and those of strategic importance to an industry sector.

The Smart Award enables Oxford Semiconductor to accelerate development of a revolutionary single chip video processor solution for the next generation of multi-media consumer electronic products, including personal video recorders, video viewers and video cameras.

The Smart project will also help to create next generation consumer storage products, able to capture, archive and playback still images, home video, movies and audio content.

James Foster, Director of Oxford Semiconductor commented: "The Smart award is great news for us. The investment gives us the opportunity to take a leadership position in the global semiconductor market for multi-media products. We are expecting to have products based on this technology in the shops next year."