Pioneering technology company UltraSoC has been shortlisted in the Research Collaboration category in the NMI Awards – which champion the electronic systems and technology industry in the UK and Ireland.

The Research Collaboration category celebrates innovative research and development activity which has encouraged strong industry and academic collaboration. Judges are looking for projects which demonstrate “world beating” technology development which has a very high potential of being adopted by industry.

UltraSoC was spun-out from the universities of Essex and Kent in 2008 and is transforming the way companies are developing and delivering next-generation electronic devices and systems.

UltraSoC’s Chief Scientist and co-founder Professor Klaus McDonald-Maier, from the School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering at Essex, said: “We are really proud to have received this recognition. UltraSoC is helping support a transformation in the way we design and build our products. Companies developing cutting-edge technology will be using UltraSoC to push back the barriers of what is possible and to deliver exceptional performance and reliability.”

The latest technology from cars to smartphones depend on Systems-on-a-Chip (SoCs), a single computer chip which brings together the major components that make a device tick. These SoCs are becoming incredibly complex – with multiple processor blocks, interconnect and software – and this means design teams are finding it tough to understand their operation using conventional means.

This is where UltraSoC's debugging and analytics technology comes in as it can help accelerate time-to-market, reduces bugs and help increases performance. UltraSoC products also simplify the SoC design team’s tasks of system integration and deliver performance analysis and enhancement.

This means SoCs equipped with UltraSoC technology are easier to integrate into a system design; UltraSoC technology can be used even after products are deployed in the field, allowing SoCs to be optimized in-service and for forensic analysis to be undertaken in the event of a failure.

Other leading companies which have been shortlisted include e2v Technologies, IQE, Raytheon and Ricardo UK Ltd.

Award winners will be announced on Thursday 19 November.