Sonics Opens Design Center in Taiwan

Demand for Memory Subsystem Solutions Drives Company’s SoC Development, Growth Strategies in Taiwan; Appoints General Manager for Sonics Taiwan

TAIPEI and Milpitas, Calif., – October 14, 2010 – Sonics, Inc.®, the world’s number one  supplier of on-chip communications IP, today announced a new design center in Taipei to accommodate increasing customer demand for its line of memory subsystem solutions.  Sonics ‘ research and development efforts will focus on existing as well as future memory subsystem technologies to help SoC designers solve memory bottleneck challenges and cost-effectively increase memory bandwidth and DRAM efficiencies. This week in Taipei, Sonics executives will unveil the company’s technology strategy for Taiwan, targeting SoC designers developing next-generation video, portable media and mobile devices—where memory bottlenecks have been longstanding issues.

To manage this growth and local design initiatives, Sonics recently appointed 10-year company veteran, Dr. Chien-Chun (Joe) Chou, as its new vice president and general manager for Sonics Taiwan.  Chou will reside in Taipei at the company’s new facility and report to James Mac Hale—who was recently named as Sonics’ vice president of Asia Operations earlier this year. 

In his new role, Chou is responsible for the creation and development of Sonics’ design center in Taipei, strengthening the local technical and sales support teams, and implementing the company’s product and technology vision to serve the growing SoC design requirements in Taiwan and China.  As a 10-year Sonics veteran and a 15-year semiconductor expert, Chou was raised and educated in Taiwan and today has a deep understanding of the Sonics’ architecture and unique regional requirements of complex SoC design in the region. Most recently, Chou served as Sonics’ Director of Architecture and Advanced Dataflow Group in Engineering, where he directed the design and deployment of next-generation on-chip networks.  Prior to Sonics, Chou worked for semiconductor leaders Intel and Fujitsu as a senior architect. From 1993-1997, Chou served as a respected associate professor in Tamkang University’s Computer Science Department in Taipei.  He has also filed more than 15 patents in his career.

In June, Sonics opened a branch office in Taipei and established a technical and sales support team to accommodate its increasing customer base and prepare for the rapid growth from its new memory IP solutions, including MemMax AMP™, unveiled last month.  MemMax AMP is the first standalone memory scheduler that optimizes memory bandwidth/DRAM scheduling on-chip in a single IP block.  As a highly sophisticated scheduler, MemMax AMP is the only on-chip memory IP solution that allows SoC designers and system architects to significantly boost memory bandwidth utilization from the average ~45-50 percent level up to 85 percent in some designs, without re-architecting the memory subsystem.  MemMax AMP is well suited for advanced SoCs requiring high-bandwidth DRAM access, such as high-definition video streaming in smart phones, tablet computers, personal media players, HDTVs, DVRs, and other popular consumer devices. 

“We are pleased to welcome Joe into this new role for Sonics in one of the company’s most exciting growth periods,” said Mac Hale.  “Joe’s wealth of technical knowledge, experience building and leading technical teams and his unique knowledge of Taiwan’s SoC design community, as both a professor and a seasoned engineer, will undoubtedly accelerate our growth and leadership.  We continue to build a strong team, and have an aggressive growth plan in place to be the leader for on-chip networks, memory IP and subsystem solutions in Taiwan.”

“This is a remarkable phase in Sonics’ history, and we have a great opportunity to extend our leadership into Taiwan very quickly,” said Chou, vice president and general manager, Sonics Taiwan.  “Taiwan’s SoC market is thriving today and I am thrilled to be leading our local design efforts.  I look forward to working with our customers to achieve even higher levels of success for their design innovations."

About Sonics

Sonics, Inc. is a pioneer of network-on-chip (NoC) technology and today offers SoC designers the largest portfolio of intelligent, on-chip communications solutions for home entertainment, wireless, networking and mobile devices.  With a broad array of silicon-proven IP, Sonics helps designers eliminate memory bottlenecks associated with complex, high-speed SoC design, streamline and unify data flows and solve persistent network challenges in embedded systems with multiple cores.  As the leading supplier of on-chip communications networks for the embedded market, Sonics has enabled its customers to ship more than 750 million units worldwide.  Founded in 1996, Sonics is headquartered in Milpitas, Calif. with offices worldwide.  For more information, please visit www.sonicsinc.com and www.sonicsinc.com/blog.