An Israeli startup takes on Moore's law--and Texas Instruments

It's hard enough for chip makers simply to keep pace with Moore's law, which predicts that chips will double in performance every 18 months. But Lenslet Labs in Ramat Gan, Israel, is aiming to leapfrog Moore's law altogether by coming up with an optical signal processor that could run as much as a thousand times faster than today's fastest digital signal processors (DSPs), the math chips in everything from cell phones to music players. If it does so, Lenslet will shake up the DSP market, which the research firm Forward Concepts estimates was worth $4.3 billion last year. This would put market leader Texas Instruments squarely in Lenslets's sights. Aviram Sariel, CEO of Lenslet and a veteran of optical startups, founded the company in 1999 and has built it to more than 50 employees. In late 2000, the company raised $26 million from the investment bank Goldman Sachs and several venture firms, and it's considering raising more funding. Mr. Sariel hopes that harnessing light to perform calculations--a preoccupation of a wide range of communications and computing companies--will be far more efficient than using relatively slow electrical signals.