Morse Micro
Morse Micro is a Sydney-based developer of Wi-Fi HaLow microprocessors. The chips use low-bandwidth wireless network protocols in the sub 1 GHz spectrum, enabling high data rates of 10 megabits per second, at a range of 1,000 metres. The Australian Government provided them 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.” The company says the main application of their technology is machine-to-machine communications, which is “expanding Wi-Fi so it can go into everything, every smoke  alarm, every camera." Apart from Sydney, it has offices and laboratories in India, China and the United States. Technology. The chip communicates on the 750 - 950 MHz band which allows for higher data speeds than Bluetooth communications operating at 2.4 GHz. It enables a single Wi-Fi HaLow Access Point that can securely connect up to 8,191 devices. Compared to traditional wi-fi, the company claims their chip provides 10 times the range, 100 times the area and 1000 times the volume. In one field test they found the technology could sustain high speed data transmission between a device at  the North end of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House. Physically, the company's microchip is one-fifth the size of a traditional Wi-Fi processor. It uses very little energy, consuming 1% of the power consumed by traditional chips, which is achieved by periodically waking and reporting. As such, chips can operate for several years on a single coin-size battery. In 2020, the first generation of Morse Micro chips went into production in Taiwan.   History. "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 2017The founding partners of Morse Micro, Andrew Terry and Michael De Nil met while working for Broadcom Inc, the largest supplier of integrated circuits for communications. 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.” They decided  to create a new kind of microprocessor, specifically for the Internet of things. 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: Vahid Manian joined Morse Micro in June 2020 as the Chief Operating Officer looking over operations in Irvine, California. He had been a founding member of Broadcom's global operations organisation. In May 2019, Series A funding was provided in by a suite of investors including the CSIRO Innovation Fund, part of the Australian scientific research agency credited with inventing Wi -Fi in 1997. As of November 2020, total investment behind the group was $US30 million including investments from CSIRO's Main Sequence Ventures, Scott Farquhar, the Clean Energy Innovation Fund, American entrepreneur Ray Stata and Blackbird Ventures.