[Hopeful small business champion] ASICLAND, Designated as the only TSMC VCA partner in Korea…Leading the market with technological competitiveness 

Demand for non-memory semiconductors which in running shortage, autonomous driving car, 5G mobile communication, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Internet of Things (IoT) has been increasing. 

At the time many related starts up companies are emerging, there is a chipless company specializing in non-memory semiconductor design that is a strong supporter of semiconductor design and production. It is ASICLAND, the only VCA company of TSMC, which is the world’s largest independent semiconductor foundry.

Lee Jong-min, 47, CEO of ASICLAND, located in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon, met with him on the 28th and asked about ASICLAND. 

ASICLAND, a chipless company specializing in non-memory semiconductor design, established on April 5, 2016, means a place where people who do ’ASIC’, which supports design service to manufacturing as customer’s order, get together and enjoy it. ASICLAND, which CEO Lee founded with only two employees, has now grown to be a small and strong company with about 100 employees. 

After being certified as a family-friendly excellent company (Ministry of Gender Equality and Family) and a human resource development small and medium sized company (Ministry of SMEs and Startups) in 2018, ASICLAND was selected as a promising small and medium-sized company in Gyeonggi-do in 2019. Thanks to the ASICLAND’s biggest strength, technological competitiveness. 

◇Providing turnkey solutions available from Level “0” to production stage = ASICLAND’s main business areas ▶System On Chip(SoC) ▶ASIC Design Service ▶ PA(Process Architecture), ect.  

In the case of System-on-chip, ASICLAND provides turnkey services that make it easier for customers to use from level '0' to front-end and back-end design, package, test, and mass production stages. 

Until now, South Korean design house companies have mainly performed services only in back-end-oriented design areas. However, recently, design houses are participating from architectural design, and ASICLAND has strengths as a leading company in design services with AI and IoT hardware templates.  

ASIC Design service also provides various design services from synthesis which meets customer’s request application to GDS Out.

In the PA business group, which means detailed process setting work after semiconductor process design, ASICLAND has a strength to provide total solutions from IP survey to OSAT management. Step-by-step services such as fab process services, packages, IP systems are available.

As for the background of the ASICLAND’s turnkey service, CEO Lee said, “For sustainable management in semiconductor design service area, technology competitiveness is needed. So we have been working hard to get technology competitiveness by creating a platform that can provide solutions from Level 0 to production stage.”

Especially, ASICLAND is actively responding to customer needs by establishing partnerships with major suppliers to provide fast and stable setup by providing wafers and package test solutions suitable for customer’s products.

◇Designated as only TSMC VCA in Korea=As a result of efforts to increase efficiency and product stability by creating as a flatform for processes that need to be carried out per semiconductor production process, ASICLAND was designated as a VCA(Value Chain Aggregator) by TSMC which is the world’s largest independent semiconductor foundry. Value Chain Aggregator (VCA) has a right to provide related design services to customers which want to use TSMC. Among TSMC’s VCAs, which are only 8 companies in the world, ASICLAND is the only TSMC VCA in Korea.

ASICLAND has bee trying to get technology competitiveness, security system and financial capabilities to be a VCA.

“To become a VCA, there is a highly selective process for about one year.” CEO Lee said, “For this, our employees had been preparing for long time by working as subcontractors of GUC in Taiwan and so on.”

As a result, ASICLAND was selected as a VCA company directly, skipping the DCA(service partner) stage, despite having the shortest history among the competitors. Until now, many companies designated as VCA companies have worked with TSMC as DCA companies. Nevertheless, ASICLAND has been designated as a VCA company and is currently working on designing TSMC 7nm and is contributing to the production of its partner company's products by performing the largest task of 12nm in Korea.

◇AI Semiconductor, ASICLAND is planning to focus on mass production by developing system semiconductors that are core of future industries such as AI, 5G, IoT, and autonomous driving.

As an example, ASICLAND participated in SoC design, Backend design, server system production, and development of AI semiconductor 'SAPEON X220' developed by SK Telecom last year.

CEO Lee said, “I think success of future industries depend on semiconductors. We will make continue to make efforts to innovate in the future by challenging commercialization of 5nm process in 2~3 years.”