Moving Towards Design-Lite for Innovation

Over the past thirty years, the semiconductor industry has witnessed an evolution. It began with the outsourcing of tools and the creation of the EDA industry. This evolution continued with the creation and adoption of third party IP for complex designs. Over the past two decades, the industry moved toward foundry-based manufacturing called fab-lite, a model where semiconductor companies outsourced chip fabrication to specialized manufacturers. Today, this evolution continues with design-lite. While innovation requirements coexists with time-to-market pressures, companies are seeking new ways to maximize the return on their product investments. Design-lite enables a company’s engineering team to focus on the core product roadmap, while utilizing the design capabilities of another company to build derivatives of those products and expand market reach. Not only is the market ready for design-lite model, it is necessary in order to meet today’s various design challenges.

Posted on Thursday May. 05, 2011