Chip design firm opens up at the University of SussexHarry YeatesFlextronics Semiconductor has set up a UK design centre in Brighton to support Asic and SoC customers in the UK, Ireland and Europe.
The firm has expanded its Asic design capability in Scandinavia, and opened a design services head office in Slovenia, to which the Brighton operation will be a satellite.
We'd been looking around for a couple of years, either for a small company to acquire, or somewhere we could grow organically, explained Gary Chapman, sales manager for Flextronics Semiconductor. In terms of our growth plan and getting the staff, the timing was right. There are a lot of good, highly competent designers around at the moment.
The new unit is based at the Sussex Innovation Centre on the site of the University of Sussex. It will employ around five designers, using Magma and Synopsys tools, concentrating on advanced processes.
Our main focus is on 0.13 and 0.18µm, and 90nm when it comes on line, said James Eyre, the centre's manager and former technical director of Brighton design house iS3, which was forced to close last year when business dried up.
The recession is still quite severe, but we're seeing some interesting projects, he continued. For example, a current project is a 1.3 million gate design on 0.18µm.
Chapman said the exorbitant cost of tools for the smaller geometries meant the resources of a large company were an important factor in being able to support designs on advanced processes. He also supported recent comments from independent UK design houses that customers do not always appreciate the costs involved in the work they outsource.
Everyone's watching the purse strings. Designing for 0.13µm and 90nm is a serious investment, so funding is a crucial issue, he said.