VeriSilicon touts shift from fab lite to design lite

Junko Yoshida, EETimes
9/4/2012 5:50 PM EDT

SHANGHAI – If you think chip companies are popping up everywhere in China, producing a flood of me-too products based on me-too business models, well, think again. VeriSilicon doesn’t fit the stereotype and defies many preconceived notions about Chinese technology companies.

Headed by Wayne Dai, one of the best connected executives in China and Silicon Valley, VeriSilicon is pitching a “design lite” strategy to potential global partners. Just as the wafer-foundry business model freed many IC companies from manufacturing internally designed chips using their own fabs, Dai promotes a “design foundry” business model. The model aims to free chip vendors from designing all elements of a customer’s SoC from scratch.

A new breed of fabless, designless chip companies may not sit well with traditional vendors,  but the design lite model may nevertheless be just what the doctor ordered for an industry in transition.

In essence, VeriSilicon offers an antidote to the costly custom consumer SoC business. The nature of the high risk, low margin custom SoC business has brought companies like Renesas Electronics to its knees. Renesas has little choice but to leave the audio visual/multimedia sector of the SoC business. Noting the tremendous pressure from competitors in Taiwan and Korea, VeriSilicon’s Dai said: “It’s time for Japan to work with the Chinese.”

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