Sondrel: bringing Architecting the Future to the American market

This design approach significantly de-risks the realisation of complex, edge ASICs which Sondrel specialises in providing for industry customers in areas such as high-performance computing, automotive, artificial intelligence, VR/AR, video analytics, image processing, mobile networking, and data centres.

“When a mask set for a 5nm design can cost over $10 million, our customers seek absolute confidence in having the design right first time and on time,” explained Graham Curren, Sondrel’s CEO and Founder. “Our unique approach, which we call Architecting the Future, is how we achieve this. It brings together all our design experience, IP, flows, and custom tools developed over the past twenty years to ensure we deliver exactly what each customer wants. Fundamental to this is our SFA family of reference platforms. Each reference platform can be adapted with different processors, memory, and IP to meet or exceed a customer’s exact specification. This results in a much more directed process than starting from a blank sheet of paper every time and significantly reduces risk as we are using high quality design flows and well proven building blocks.”

Sondrel chose The SHD Group as it provides its clients with access to top-level contacts within the Silicon Valley community. “Any deal worth many millions for the design and supply of a new chip is decided at the topmost levels of a company,” said Derek Meyer, Founder and CEO of The SHD Group. “We have a team that has successfully closed numerous, multi-million-dollar agreements so we know that it takes building relationships and trust between supplier and customer. Furthermore, we have done our own research on Sondrel’s Architecting the Future solution, and we believe that their approach, incorporating the SFA platforms, reduces design and schedule risk for customers, giving Sondrel a big edge over competition.”

With the USA’s CHIPS act in place, many American companies are keen to create new, secure supply chain models. Sondrel, based in the UK, is ideally positioned to provide full turnkey services that meet this need.

“The timing is perfect,” said Ian Walsh, Sondrel’s VP ASIC Business Development. “There is a window of opportunity opening up for Sondrel to become a leading supplier of the ultra-complex chips that the industry needs for its future products. The SHD Group, with their extensive connections, can open the doors to enable Sondrel to be the supplier of choice for the innovative chips that are the industry’s lifeblood.”