AmberSemi signs first two equipment customers says CEO

Power startup Amber Semiconductor has signed its first two strategic multi-phased partnerships around its power silicon.

These deals with Jasco and Deaco mark the first electrical product companies to publicly announce plans to explore the integration of AmberSemi’s semiconductor products into their key product lines.

Amber plans two product lines, the first with DC delivery directly from 120V AC mains without rectifier bridges, high-voltage bulk caps or transformers for auxiliary power delivery.

Jasco develops home automation, lighting, home entertainment, power and mobility. The next strategic partnership is with electrical products company Deako, the creator of the industry’s first modular smart lighting system for homeowners, with multichannel distribution specifically in the builder and electrical products channel.

The second product line is developing a first-of-its-kind power-switching and protection device enabled by direct digital control and precision sensing,

“We did engineering samples in 2024 that we could learn how it fits their needs and we got feedback to integrate into the actual production wafers,” CEO Thar Casey tells eeNews Europe. “We taped out last September and now the wafers are aback and we are bringing those up. Those companies and others have taken the time to test the engineering samples and very shortly they will be receiving the commercial silicon samples.”

“What you are going to see is 120V to start with, but it can go up to 277V direct in with 1.8V to 24V out and non-isolated as its more of a housekeeping power supply for lighting controllers and microcontrollers and we are aiming commercial, industrial and residential designs worldwide,” said Casey.

“I’m focussing on reliability and footprint, eliminating anything that is drying out over time, the big bulky magnetics,” he added. “Power supplies are such a commoditised solution that sit on the outside of the plug. We are focussing on inside the equipment. Think about a touch controller in an appliance, all the sensors live on a housekeeping power supply so instead of using the microcontroller you can use our solution with higher efficiency than a conventional power supply for things like smoke detectors.”

These are key deals for the company, Rob Halligan, chief marketing office of AmberSemi, tells eeNews Europe.

“This is the really important inflexion point, this is commercial adoption,” he said.

“AmberSemi is modernizing power management for its initial customers’ residential and commercial electrical products as our first initial step,” said Haligan. “There are many larger issues in the market, which we are also addressing, in sectors such as data centres, networking, telecom, factories and more,” he added. “By upgrading how power is converted and controlled in electrical products, AmberSemi is setting a new standard for power products through its active architecture, digital control and precision sensing to create intelligent power management across a broad spectrum of product applications and industries.

Amber also has partnership deals with Nordic Semiconductor and STMicroelectronics. The ST deal is specifically for a jointly developed reference design with AmberSemi that integrated early engineering samples of AmberSemi’s first silicon chip alongside ST’s STM32 microcontroller into a motor control prototype demo.

The company expects commercial engineering samples for the first of its semiconductor products to be available in 1H of 2025 for customer testing, with volume production units available as early as Q2 of 2025.