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A
potential World Leader
Operating
in Bicester, Oxfordshire since 1991, Transense is a company
with 11 employees which concentrates its efforts on the production
of low cost, non contact transducer technologies for use in
automotive applications. Key application areas serviced by the
company are torque measurement for Electric Power Assisted Steering
(EPAS), traction control and passive tyre pressure monitoring
systems. The company researches technologies and produces prototype
and reference systems that demonstrate the technology to potential
licensees in the automotive and automotive component industries.
The
growth for EPAS from 2001 onwards is anticipated to be rapid,
with General Motors forecasting that EPAS will overtake conventional
power steering by 2006. All the major car companies are looking
at EPAS and Transense is currently working with most of these
and their key component suppliers.
Having
assessed other products and technologies in the market by price,
performance and general acceptance, Jim Perry, CEO and Anthony
Lonsdale, Technical Director from Transense realised that the
TorqsenseTM non contact transducer was a potential world leader
in the EPAS market and as a result placed world wide patents
to protect it.
In
order to be commercially successful, the Transense EPAS products
needed to be reduced in both size and cost for the mass market
and this endeavour became the subject of an EC FUSE 'Replication
Exercise' conducted with the assistance of the Electronics Design
Centre at the University of Hertfordshire.
Prior
to the Replication Exercise, Transense EPAS products were prototype
and reference systems built using discrete components and assembled
on PCBs. These required skilled manual calibration and were
both too bulky and too costly to manufacture for volume application.
In collaboration with the Support Centre at the University of
Hertfordshire, an ASIC design was proposed which would replace
most of the prototype electronics and sensor assembly (about
150 cm2 of PCB). When packaged together with a SAW- based MST
device which had already been developed, the combination was
of a size and cost for use in commercial automotive applications
and offered the additional advantages of very suitable large
volume potential and improved reliability. The ASIC and new
packaging technology also meant that the price of such systems
could be reduced from €1500 to €15.
Transense
wanted to use an analogue ASIC as the key electronic control
part of the sensor system and the assistance provided by the
Electronics Design (ED) Support Centre during the replication
exercise provided Transense with the benefit of experience that
other companies have had with the adoption of ASIC technology.
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Best
practices established
The
ED support centre and its Business Advisor assisted Transense
significantly during the specification phase, during which
Transense was having to deal with the acquisition of a key
subcontractor by ATMEL. This and other issues meant that the
specification phase did not make progress as rapidly as had
been anticipated. The main achievement of the support centre
was to move the company ethos on from 'Internal Research'
to 'Development in Partnership'.
For
instance when attempting to specify a certain parameter (e.g.
output voltage) the company tended to say:
"We
do not know what is the absolute minimum value to meet the
requirements, so we need to do more research".
Colin
Dente, the support centre Business Advisor encouraged the
company to:
- Define
a (higher) minimum value which they knew would meet requirements
- Discuss
the potential achievement of this with the subcontractor
- Perform
additional research, only if the subcontractor indicated
that the higher value would be difficult to achieve
The
training and assistance provided by the Support Centre resulted
in significant change to the company's practices and ultimately
a full time member of staff was hired to take over from the
Support Centre in managing the project.
A
Winning Formula
The
replication exercise proved an economic benefit to the company,
enabling production of a solution which matches automotive
production needs. Without the ASIC developed in the exercise
the system would have been too large and expensive for commercial
use. The completed ASIC has now been licensed exclusively
to ATMEL and this deal is expected to provide approximately
€10 million revenue over the life of the product.
During
the period of cooperation between Transense and the Support
Centre, the valuation of the company has risen from £10
Million in 1999 to £190 million today. By any standards
this is success, so what was the formula?
The
long-term vision of the company directors is difficult to
fault in terms of market needs analysis and the identification
of appropriate sensor technology. These elements were already
'in house'. Significantly the company realised too where skills
and technology knowledge were lacking and were able to fill
the gap with government supported initiatives (such as the
DTI Electronics Design programme and EC FUSE programme). Jim
Perry and his team identified a winning formula that other
British companies might do well to emulate.
For
further information visit: www.transense.co.uk
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