Capital Integral to Integral Wave

Integral Wave Technologies Inc. of Fayetteville has started raising capital to begin manufacturing its passive components for electronics.

Formerly Arkansas Microelectronics Development Corp., Integral expects to initially hire as many as 20 engineers and operators for the expansion. David Nelms, Integral’s founder and chief technology officer, said he hopes to keep the company in Fayetteville.

“Our goal is to have the manufacturing operation here,” Nelms said. “But that will depend on whether or not we can raise the money we need here. It’s often difficult to raise venture capital in Arkansas, and right now we’re just seeing what’s out there.”

The firm, a client of the University of Arkansas’ Genesis Technology Incubator, has spent the last two years developing sleek capacitors, resistors and inductors for electronic equipment like cell phones. Since there are about 450 passive components in the average cell phone, Integral’s thin-film components are designed to take up less space.

“They help reduce the size of circuit boards by 50 percent or more in cell phones,” Nelms said. “And everyone wants cell phones and pagers to be smaller, lighter, faster and cheaper. These components make that possible.”

According to reports by Paumanok Publications of Carey, N.C., 1.2 trillion passive components worth $14.1 billion will be sold this year.

Nelms received the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Tibbetts Award on Oct. 3 in Washington, D.C. Named for SBA Innovative Research program founder Roland Tibbetts, the national award is presented annually to “models of excellence” in the area of high technology.

Integral received a $632,000 SBIR grant Phase II Fast Track grant earlier this year. It was the first time an Arkansas company had ever received a Fast Track award.