December 6, 2018
SPARK Microsystems wins the 6th annual Nokia Bell Labs Open Innovation Challenge for its revolutionary ultra-low power and ultra-short latency wireless platform
Montreal, Canada - Silicon Catalyst Portfolio Company SPARK Microsystems has been named the winner of the Nokia Bell Labs Open Innovation Challenge 2018 for its ultra-low power and ultra-short latency wireless transceiver technology. In addition to the US$100,000 grand prize, SPARK Microsystems will have an opportunity to collaborate with Nokia and Nokia Bell Labs resources to deploy its unique wireless platform.
Marcus Weldon, President of Nokia Bell Labs and CTO of Nokia, said, “This year’s Open Innovation Challenge brought together many innovative startups with impressive products, technologies and solutions that will shape the world of industrial automation. While competition was tight, SPARK Microsystems was selected as the winner for its low power wireless transceiver chipset that has the potential to help ‘spark’ the next industrial revolution.”
Fares Mubarak, CEO of SPARK Microsystems, said, “SPARK is honored to be selected as the winner of this year’s prestigious award. Nokia and Nokia Bell Labs are networking, communications and wireless technologies leaders, and we look forward to collaborating on delivering innovative solutions for edge devices, sensors and wearable applications. These applications are a great fit for our ultra-low power and ultra-short latency groundbreaking wireless technology and are aligned with Nokia’s vision of the future.”
Frederic Nabki, cofounder and CTO of SPARK Microsystems, said, “We are proud to have our innovative wireless technology recognized by Nokia Bell Labs, a staple of innovation, and by Nokia, a visionary player in the wireless and networking spaces, behind staple wireless technologies like Bluetooth Low Energy. We believe our technology to be a great fit for edge devices and sensors within Nokia’s 5G network solutions, where short latency, connection robustness, density of connections and low power consumption are paramount.”
Based in Montreal, SPARK Microsystems stood out from more than 300 startups from all over the world. This year’s competition focused on products and solutions for industrial automation and the Internet of Things.
Participants went through two rounds of evaluations and the top six finalists were invited to present their technology to an international jury panel at Nokia Bell Labs. The jury was led by Dr. Weldon and comprised of leaders from across Nokia, Nokia Bell Labs and NGP Capital.
About SPARK Microsystems
SPARK Microsystems is a fabless semiconductor company that is leading the way towards ultra-low power wireless communications for the Internet of Things revolution. With its patented technologies, SPARK Microsystems will bring to market a high performance wireless transceiver that allows for orders of magnitude improved power consumption and latency while providing higher data rates than competing technologies. For more information, please visit www.sparkmicro.com.
About Nokia Bell Labs
Nokia Bell Labs is the world renowned industrial research arm of Nokia. Over its 92-year history, Bell Labs has invented many of the foundational technologies that underpin information and communications networks and all digital devices and systems. This research has resulted in 9 Nobel Prizes, three Turing Awards, three Japan Prizes, a plethora of National Medals of Science and Engineering, as well as an Oscar, two Grammy awards and an Emmy award for technical innovation. For more information, visit www.bell-labs.com.
About Nokia
We create the technology to connect the world. Powered by the research and innovation of Nokia Bell Labs, we serve communications service providers, governments, large enterprises and consumers, with the industry’s most complete, end-to-end portfolio of products, services and licensing.
We adhere to the highest ethical business standards as we create technology with social purpose, quality and integrity. Nokia is enabling the infrastructure for 5G and the Internet of Things to transform the human experience. For more information, visit www.nokia.com.