Domestic Design Industry's Current Situation

Most commonly, domestic IC design companies are small-scale entities, with weak technical abilities and budgets, and because of this situation, China's IC supply falls short of its demand. Related departmental statistics have shown that China's own design capabilities can only support roughly 25% of the total demand, while the remaining 70+% most be imported/outsourced from overseas.

Mr. Lin feels that another problem with the weakness and small-scale of the local industry is the lack of freedom in the IT industry. Additionally, the engineers' understanding of creating techniques and final package testing (beta testing) is limited. Promising, however, is that for the past few years more and more talented individuals have been returning to Mainland China and starting companies of their own. By so doing, these entrepreneurs will help raise the overall level of the IC design industry. That said, it should be remembered that, while the local IC design industry has broken some barriers, it is still far away from meeting the demands of motherboard/CPU makers.

The advantages of design outsourcing

"What the design industry lacks, we excel at. A loyal, trustworthy partner for silicon solutions, Alchip continually strives to make its customers' creations a reality," Mr. Lin confidently claimed. "Alchip's Turnkey Solution, simply put, includes all the chip design aside from pre-design (the framework prior to netlists/circuit channel diagrams and RTL design) to the multiple segments of production. We are able to assure our customers of first silicon success and that the production process will be optimized and predictable."

According to our understanding, Alchip is able to obtain and provide key technologies from major intellectual property (IP) providers all over the world. As such Alchip can attract customers wishing to produce high-level SoC products. This type of IP supply does not merely meet current, individual technologies' needs, but creates an IP pool from which customers can choose. Alchip's customers are able to utilize their own IP coupled with the IP Alchip provides for robust Turnkey service. This way, Alchip is able to give a real promise to its customers for fast time-to-market SoC solutions.

According to Mr. Lin, aside from design companies, Alchip's customers also include several system producers. These producers have an even greater need for fast Turnkey service, and, by working with these companies, Alchip has deepened its understanding of the system producers' demands. Having accumulated a wealth of successful experiences, Alchip is primed to assist chip design companies produce products to the utmost satisfaction.

Racking-Up Design Outsourcing Success

Experienced specialists trained abroad established Alchip in 2002, and its core group is made up of experienced designers, product and testing engineers. Alchip has strong relations with other leading chip OEMs, packaging and testing companies, which helps expedite the entire engineering and production processes. These close ties also ensure that Alchip continually rides at the forefront in engineering, chip-packaging and testing technologies. Early, in 2003, Alchip achieved first silicon success at the 130 nm level. This success was rapidly followed by 90 nm first silicon success in 2004 and 65 nm first silicon success in 2006. From these real demonstrations of SoC capability, Alchip has won a large body of loyal clientele.

Mr. Lin told reporters this year Alchip has over 30 projects, with 65% of these projects demanding silicon success at the 90 nm and 65 nm levels. Respecting their clients’ privacy, Mr. Lin would not give out the names of this year’s clients, though he noted that domestic design companies have already worked with Alchip to produce chips at the 90 nm level. Alchip is also actively trying to catch up with foreign advanced technologies to continue raising its own level of speed. Mr. Lin, personally, sees a bright future for the domestic IC design industry in China.