5 Reasons Why NOT To Hire a Tier 1 Semiconductor Supplier for Your Custom Silicon Project.

It’s quite common for system companies to want to work with brand names whenever they start playing with the idea of a custom silicon program. Like the old adage says: “no one ever got fired for choosing IBM”. And it’s not a bad deal for some system companies to go work with brand name semiconductor suppliers. Large semiconductor suppliers will offer great deals to large system companies with an established record of shipping in large volumes and ramping to mass production on time. Many of these semiconductor companies own their own foundries or have long standing relationships with large foundries, they have in-house teams improving their PDKs and technology, they have a ton of silicon proven IPs, have a great staff, have great financial stability, have great operations teams, etc…

However, for some smaller system companies, going with a brand name tier 1 semiconductor supplier is potentially going to mean trouble. The first trouble you may find is that none of them want to work with you!

Here are five reasons why it may not be a good idea for you to hire a tier 1 silicon supplier:

  • Less chip design team options. When you restrict yourself to working only with companies that can go from concept all the way to mass production of your silicon including doing all the operations back end work for the life of the chip you will be buying, you are leaving out many design houses that operate on a concept-to-GDS business model. So you’re losing out on a lot of design talent that is available in the market. However, to be able to use the latter design houses, you need to have in-house expertise on how to drive a silicon supplier. CustomSilicon.com provides this service in multiple of its services packages so you can take control of your silicon project with confidence.

There are many design houses offering their services in the marketplace. Many of them are listed in sites such as anysilicon.com. CustomSilicon.com can help you select the right design house for your project, and help you stitch together all the pieces needed to go from concept to mass production. It’s a big world out there with many choices, and the rewards are many for those who choose to get custom silicon designed for their projects as long as they mitigate their risks with good process, and experts guarding the system company’s best interests.

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At CustomSilicon.com we specialize in managing custom silicon engagements with our battle tested process. Custom system silicon when done with the assistance of silicon experts puts the system company in control of its own destiny. Hiring silicon experts full time at your company may not be reasonable due to insufficient continuous work for them, and that is why customsilicon.com provides you a solution so that you can engage with chip suppliers on custom silicon programs and mitigate all the risks associated with that choice.

Developing custom silicon can have huge benefits from an economic, engineering and market perspective for system companies, but it takes a structured and detailed approach to ensure proper take off and a successful landing. Don’t hesitate to contact us at info@customsilicon.com for any further questions, or help you may require.

Originally published at https://customsilicon.com.

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