What’s eSilicon Up To Now?

eSilicon, in conjunction with King Research, is conducting an unusual survey. A lot of vendor-driven surveys focus on specific pain points that are addressed by that particular vendor’s product/service. The idea is typically to either promote visibility for the product/service or establish its undeniable need in the market. eSilicon is a fabless ASIC provider, so I would expect their survey to focus on ASIC vendor issues.

This is not the case. The survey that eSilicon and King Research are conducting is far broader and more comprehensive than that. They touch on all kinds of design, manufacturing and operational challenges. You can check out the survey here. Paul McLellan also blogged about it recently. The survey title is also interesting: “Big Data, the Cloud and Internet of (Silicon) Things”. It seems to me eSilicon and King Research are up to something that is not typical for a fabless ASIC company. The collection of markets known as the Internet of Things will have a dramatic impact on our lives. The semiconductor industry will be impacted for certain – in a positive way for those who can see the trends. I recently shared the graphic below as part of my opening remarks at an eSilicon webinar on their GDSII quoting portal. The numbers are staggering:
eSilicon has been making noise about changing the industry using novel Internet technologies. We’ve seen some examples of that with their recent automated quoting portals. It’s interesting to note that these quoting portals have the potential to set a new bar regarding the value of Internet transactions. Again, from my opening remarks at the eSilicon webinar I shared this graphic:

The red circles show average transaction value for a few of the markets listed. Some people are buying their next car on the Internet, so that’s driving transaction value higher. But when we talk about semiconductor tapeouts over the Internet, those numbers get much, much larger. This trend for Internet transaction value is interesting, but eSilicon’s survey is also talking about Big Data and the Cloud. That suggests something else is going on. Something bigger.

I suggest you take their survey – let your voice be heard. eSilicon has done some pioneering work in the past and I think they are capable of more surprises, absolutely.

As a “thank you” eSilicon will be awarding $100 gift certificates from Amazon.com to five survey respondents. My beautiful wife and I shop Amazon all the time; we will weigh in on the survey, too. One last point – at the end of the survey you can volunteer to be part of a follow-up discussion. If you do that, you’re guaranteed an Amazon.com gift certificate. May the odds be ever in your favor…

About eSilicon
eSilicon, a leading independent semiconductor design and manufacturing solutions provider, delivers custom ICs and custom IP to OEMs, independent device manufacturers (IDMs), fabless semiconductor companies (FSCs) and wafer foundries through a fast, flexible, lower-risk, automated path to volume production. eSilicon serves a wide variety of markets including the communications, computer, consumer, industrial and medical segments. www.esilicon.com.