Elemental Technologies Inc. recently announced that Pixelworks, Inc., a leading provider of system-on-chip ICs for the advanced display industry, has agreed to provide seed funding for the company. Elemental Technologies (ETI) is a start-up semiconductor design company founded by three engineers, including Mike West, a Pixelworks co-founder. Elemental is focused on creating a revolutionary network-aware distributed display processing architecture.

The investment by Pixelworks is providing seed capital to assist in the formation of Elemental Technologies and for funding initial research and development efforts. As part of the terms, Allen Alley, President, CEO and Chairman of Pixelworks, Inc., will hold a board observation seat.

“The technology path that the Elemental Technologies team is pursuing holds promise for creating products that are complementary to our MediaProcessor ICs. Mike West has demonstrated his outstanding talent as a technical visionary who helped us build Pixelworks into a successful fabless semiconductor company and we have confidence that he will do it again,” said Alley.

Commenting on the investment, West said, “ETI is thrilled by this vote of confidence in our technology from an acknowledged leader in the image processing semiconductor market.”

Elemental Technologies, headquartered in Portland, Oregon, and launched operations in August 2006, is a fabless semiconductor company that will enable seamless and secure personal media access on any device over any network. The solution includes cost-effective, network-aware, multi-standard digital compression accelerators with a unique focus on unsurpassed image quality, security, and ease of use. The semiconductor devices will be ideally suited for applications in rapidly growing markets including Media Center personal computers, digital media adapters, and connected digital televisions.