LONDON — Fabless semiconductor startup Air Semiconductor Ltd. (Swindon, England) is trying to raise 10 million euro (about $13 million) in a Series B round of financing.

Air Semiconductor was founded in 2006 with Series A funding from Pond Ventures, of $6.8 million. The company claims proprietary technology provides continuous and instant location that eliminates the traditional time-to-first-fix (TTFF) problems associated with assisted GPS and yet drains negligible power, making the company's chips suitable for inclusion in mobile devices.

Hugh Thomas, appointed as CEO of Air in May 2008, made it public that company was seeking additional funds at a Semiconductor Summit organized by the European Tech Tour Association that took place in Montreux, Switzerland, on Nov. 4 and 5.

"Q4 2008: the company is seeking 10 million euro to take the first product to market, scale design and marketing teams, build its sales channels and customer support," Thomas said in his presentation.

In July the company demonstrated a prototype of its airwave1 chip in development tests involving geotagging of images on commercial digital cameras. First samples of Airwave1 are due to become available to customers in early 2009. The chip contains the RF and digital hardware and the software needed to calculate location data. It outputs location data for integration into digital cameras and other consumer devices.

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