Overview
Building the World's Best Fully Custom Silicon
The semiconductor market is one of the most demanding, with many companies around the world trying to carve out winning market shares. As a result, creating the best fully custom silicon has evolved into much more than a study in design technique and product definition, and now requires excellence in three areas:
Flexibility
Flexibility is important, as winning at one technology node is no longer enough. Instead, companies must follow-up initial successes with products that dominate in subsequent technology nodes. However, what if the IP or foundry that was well positioned for the first product finds itself behind for the second? What if product line #1 is fundamentally different than product line #2, and the technology that is best for one is second-rate for the other? Only by having the freedom to select the right IP vendors and foundries for each product can designers make sure that generations of product are the best possible, and continue to beat the competition. Open-Silicon's OpenMODEL™ allows companies the flexibility to select the best IP and foundry technology for each product with confidence that Open-Silicon's engineering teams can successfully deliver the working device on time.
Technology Leadership
Once the best technologies have been assembled, a company needs to put it all together. The competition will also be working hard to deliver the smallest die, cheapest package, lowest power consumption, highest performance, lowest test cost, and highest manufacturability. Since the competition is most likely also developing their silicon using industry-standard EDA flows, how can custom silicon be differentiated? Open-Silicon's industry-leading MAX technologies deliver an extra 5%, 10%, or sometimes even 25% of value that sets your custom silicon apart from the competition.
Collaboration
Finally, delivering the best solution requires a new model for partnership. The "Open" in Open-Silicon is a philosophy governing how chip development should be conducted. Customers must be able to see all the details of a complex chip development, the good and the bad, or they cannot be part of the solution. Open-Silicon's project management software is shared online so that everyone is working from a single set of data, and can work together closely. Program management at Open-Silicon is empowered to make the tough decisions, and is accountable directly to the CEO office. Our design teams continue to win customer kudos for the level of detail with which they communicate on the design issues, their willingness to listen to customer ideas, and the level of feedback that they provide to make the development move as quickly and smoothly as possible.
Summary
At Open-Silicon we believe that building the best fully custom silicon requires the right business model flexibility, access to leadership technology, and a true partnership paradigm.