The company, founded in 2001, is listed 5th in The Sunday Times top 100 SME exporters. Since its inception it has emerged as a world-leading IC design house with a consistent track record for technical excellence in digital, RF and mixed-signal design; and industry testimonials including: Alcatel-Lucent, Dialog Semiconductor, Imagination Technologies, Motorola and NXP.
The night also saw FlexEnable take the Disruptive Innovation of the Year award for its work in industrialising plastic electronics for flexible displays and sensors. And Peter Davies of Thales e-Security received the Contribution to Industry honour for his work to advance cyber security and position the UK as a leader in this sector.
Davies is a world-leading expert on cryptography, developing and certifying flexible, interoperable security solutions for businesses and governments. His work on technologies such as digital DNA is at the core of cyber defence and forensics activities to combat existential threats against businesses and has worked with the EU and the Prime Minister, as well as countless boards, agencies, certification labs and partners.
The awards celebrate the year’s key electronics innovations, people and companies from across the UK and Ireland. The TechWorks Awards have run annually since 2001 - originally branded as the NMI Awards.
Speaking at the event, the awards’ compère, John Sergeant said of EnSilica: “It has been a transformational year for EnSilica moving from pure design services to a fabless ASIC company.
“The firm has won significant IC supply contracts with a major automotive Tier-1 supplier [and] had another year of high growth [which was also] recognised by the Queen’s Award for enterprise.”
When presenting the award to Peter Davies, John Sergeant highlighted he had: “made an outstanding contribution in the world of Deep Tech.”
Adding Davies is “not only recognised by TechWorks as offering pioneering insight and energy in his field, but [also] by the NCSC, the UK Government, and his peers as a world expert on security and technology.”
Other key winners included Ultra Electronics Energy, which took Product of the Year; McLaren Applied Technologies, which took home two awards - for Automotive and Power Electronics; and Arm’s Emma Curati-Alasonatti who was named Young Engineer of the Year.
The full list of winners is:
Company of the Year Award - EnSilica
Contribution to Industry Award - Peter Davies, Thales e-Security
Product of the Year Award - Ultra Electronics Energy
Disruptive Innovation Award - FlexEnable
Emerging Technology Company of the Year Award - Moortec Semiconductor
Automotive Electronics Innovation & Excellence Award - McLaren Applied Technologies
Power Electronics Innovation Award - McLaren Applied Technologies
IoT Security Foundation Champion Award - Arçelik
Manufacturing Site of the Year Award - Newport Wafer Fab
Manufacturing Supplier of the Year Award (based on industry survey) - STS
NMI Electronic Systems Outstanding Supplier of the Year Award - MASER Engineering
Research Collaboration Award - u-blox / University of Bristol
University Research Group of the Year Award - Power Electronics Applications and Technology in Energy Research (PEATER), School of Engineering, University of Warwick
Young Engineer of the Year award - Emma Curati-Alasonatti, Arm
UKESF Scholar of the Year Award – Ricki Tura from the University of Southampton, sponsored by UltraSoC
Cyber Student of the Year in Automotive Award - Eduardo dos Santos, Cyber Security Centre for Doctoral Training, University of Oxford
