Founded in January 2000, Fulcrum is putting 30 employees and $36 million (so far) into harvesting markets that will benefit from asynchronous circuit design techniques.

Asynchronous, or "clockless," chips possess a set of advantages and disadvantages compared with their synchronous brethren. These chips run at lower power but pay a price in die area and metal traces. Also, asynchronous designs are more robust over variations in temperature and supply voltage. On the downside, besides being relatively new in the commercial domain, asynchronous chips do not currently have much in the way of design tool support.

Perhaps the most contentious issue surrounding asynchronous designs is their speed. In theory, since blocks of asynchronous logic do not need to wait for a clock to perform their functions, these chips can run faster than synchronous designs. Blocks of asynchronous logic are floating around here and there, inside small devices like smart-card ICs from Philips Semiconductors and possibly even in large devices, such as rumored blocks within Sun Microsystems' Sparc microprocessor. But until someone builds a large, commercial asynchronous chip, the debate will rage.

One must assume that Fulcrum is striving to put an end to that debate. Like many startups that bet the farm on their founders' university research, Fulcrum is taking a risk on a new technology platform. In its favor, the company understands that success is based on what its chips do rather than how they do it; it is the market that matters.

If I were running Fulcrum, I'd use what I call the Silicon Labs business strategy: Seek out high-volume existing markets and use a superior design methodology to displace incumbents. Look for designs yearning for lower power and environmental robustness.

Fulcrum is initially going the different route of bringing a new kind of chip to an existing market. If it has a hit with this product, then Fulcrum has an exciting future ahead.

Jeremey Donovan ( jeremey.donovan@gartner.com) is chief analyst at Gartner Dataquest.