Mementos from China decorate the Van Nuys office of Terocelo, Inc. President and CEO Tony Turgeon, evidence of the time he has spent there as he builds the company into a leader in the technology industry. China is a market that no company can ignore. Terocelo recognizes that by having a subsidiary there to market and sell its True Radio software for use in electronic devices such as set-top boxes. In years to come, people in China and around the world will use cell phones containing the Terocelo chip to communicate with other phones or even other electronic devices operating on a complete different frequency. Connectivity and interoperability are the two key words to describe the chip developed by Terocelo formerly known as TechnoConcepts until a name change in June. Research and development takes place in Van Nuys and San Jose, while the chips are manufactured in Newport Beach and Taiwan. Question: The company recently made a name change from TechnoConcepts to Terocelo. Why was that? Answer: Generally speaking, the word concept is not a connotation that a production-oriented company would have. Q: Had it been in the works for a while? A: It had been on the back burner for a long time. We thought the timing would be more appropriate as we targeted getting product out. Hopefully, now we’ll move up to a bigger exchange and make a few other corporate changes. Q: Can you describe the chip you make and what it does? A: The chip does a conversion of the radio frequency signal, which is an analog signal that goes through the airwaves, into digital. We do this conversion as the signal comes in from the antenna. In conventional solutions that have been around since the 1920s, the signal goes through discrete components that take it to a lower or intermediate frequency and then converted it into digital information where it is interpreted. The advantage of that, although it is a complicated process and takes a lot of high-performance algorithms and design knowledge, is by changing via software you can go to different frequencies. It provides more flexibility in the chip. From a hardware perspective, you have a consolidation of discrete components into a single chip. From a manufacturing perspective you have a single-source component that can reduce overhead and manufacturing costs. Q: How does the use of the chip translate into the use of a cell phone or other portable electronic device? A: We’re looking at next generation mobile devices. With today’s existing phones it’s not something that you just plug in. This is something you design into a next-generation phone. You can build a world-type phone at a more reasonable price. The cost structure can come way down. As the evolution of wireless moves on, the idea is you can build a phone that in the home can connect into your landline network with a wireless interface; in your car you connect into a cellular network; at a Starbucks you might connect into a Wi-Fi or Wi-Max network. The phone can connect into lots of different networks. Q: So you’re working with phone manufacturers to get your chip into their phones. A: Correct. What we are working on is we have a couple of companies we have announced we’re in discussions with that have applications for our technology that go down a migration path. One of the other applications is automobile infotainment systems. If you look at cars that have multiple radios in them, one person may be listening to a ballgame; another person may be listening to music. They’d like to see a consolidation of electronics to handle that and that is one of the initial applications we are migrating toward. Q: How long has the company been working on the chip? A: The original inventors started this back in 1994. It’s been a long time in development. We’ve added in a lot more people since 2004 working on this and refining it to the point where we can demonstrate a Wi-Max platform and we’ve taken some orders for these and will be delivering the first one in a couple of weeks. What we are doing now is putting the technology into the hands of companies that are interested in cooperating with us on various applications. Q: What’s your background? A: I have a technical background. After college I worked at JPL and NASA for a couple of years and then started working with defense companies like Lockheed, TRW and Northrop. I started out in software and then got into hardware, mainly doing computer peripherals. Then I got into systems design. I did that for a number of years and got involved with some companies helping on the business side. Q: What were the benefits of taking the company public? A: The benefits were we probably thought we could find more sources of capital. Some of the people I had been introduced to had more experience in that area of financing. We thought it would be a better vehicle for bringing more capital into the company. We didn’t realize how much more work it would be. Q: Are there other companies doing anything similar to what Terocelo is doing? A: There are companies taking existing analog designs from the 1920s and packaging them into a chip. There are other companies working in the same space. Texas Instruments is working on a chip that does a direct conversion and they have selected three or four frequencies to work with. It’s not as flexible as it doesn’t go through a complete sweep [of frequencies]. We feel our technology is more advanced and that is the type of feedback we are getting. It’s good to have competition and pressure. Q: How is Terocelo seen in the tech industry? Are you considered a major player? A: I believe we have a number of multi-billion dollar companies that are not only aware of us but are in various levels of discussions with us about how our technology can be utilized in their applications. I think we are comfortable saying we are in the forefront of this space. Q: Is this an example of having to wait for technology to catch up to do what your chip does? A: You figure the designs it’s replacing have been around since the 1920s. It’s a quantum jump to what we’re doing. It’s not a trivial task and now we have a lot of believers in it. They’ve seen it working. It does take a while to change people’s perceptions. People who are smart people say it can’t be done. Now they get engaged in it and see, in fact, we are there. Q: Where do you see the company in say three to five years? A: The goal is to be ubiquitous; to be a piece of technology that gets designed into many different types of wireless applications. In three to five years we’ll have gotten enough traction from these large companies that the technology can go into a regular distribution channel. When you get into regular distribution you have all these creative people out there coming up with new ideas, new opportunities and new applications. All they want to do is buy the technology and build stuff. That’s what we want to get. PROFILE: Tony Turgeon Title: Chairman and CEO Born: St. Johnsbury, N.H., 1948 Education: BS Mathematics, MS Computer Science Technical 12 years H/W, S/W, Systems Engineering Business 18 years High Tech Management, Scandinavian VC Advisor Personal: Married, with one daughter, 24 Most Admired: Coach John Wooden Career Turning Point: Invented smartcard technology as an entrepreneur and went out on his own.
