EnSilica extends its automotive design and supply services

"EnSilica has been growing rapidly over the past two years because we have extended our services from just design services to include managing the whole process of production manufacturing, packaging and testing," explained David Doyle, EnSilica's Commercial Director. 

"This soup to nuts service is proving very popular with customers as turning a chip design into finished chips requires a lot of experience and skills that many OEM don't have. However, chips for safety critical applications in the automotive market must be designed and made to a specific set of very high standards. I am pleased to say that we are putting all the processes into place to provide this service to automotive customers."

Richard White, Director at Lojixx, added: "The automotive market is rapidly changing from being almost completely dominated by the established Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers. This is driven by the development of driverless cars and electric/hybrids and has created market opportunities for newer entrants who can provide novel solutions for these new areas and be quick in doing so. This is now creating a significant market need by these companies for someone who can handle the whole process of taking a design brief right through to finished chips.

"EnSilica has been designing solutions for customers in the automotive market for eleven years and is able to meet the exacting design specifications required for safety critical applications. EnSilica's experience with its award-winning RADAR co-processor for driverless cars has given them first hand knowledge of all the processes and quality control procedures required.

"These combine to provide a proven path to market for companies who have innovations for the automotive industry and need a partner who can design an ASIC for them and take it through all the stages of production, packaging and testing, with every stage meeting automotive standards."

Patrick McNamee, EnSilica's Director of Silicon Operations, said: "Not only do you have to design and make chips for the automotive market to the required standards but you also have to have detailed documentation to trace chips through every stage. If a problem occurs, car manufacturers have to recall cars and they want to be able to recall as few as possible to keep costs down, so they need to be able to isolate just those ones with an issue. This may mean being able to trace chips right back to the individual wafer that they came from. 

"We have the processes and expertise to provide this exacting level of audit control. As a result, we can now open up the automotive market for nimble, creative companies to provide the innovative products that car manufacturers need by turning their ideas into chips. This is a really exciting opportunity for them to accelerate the development of driverless and electric cars."