"Enhancing business and entering to US market following KOSDAQ listing"ASICLAND, an ASIC(Application-Specific Integrated Circuit) design solution company, is preparing an IPO(Initial Public Offering). ASICLAND is the only Korean VCA(Value Chain Alliance) of TSMC, the largest foundry company.ASICLAND accelerates the growth with the first domestic AI semiconductor design, the world’s first 5G mobile base station semiconductor mass production, and other mass production lineups for main customers in the 4th revolutionary industry. It has also changed new sales records every year. The annual revenue reached 65.6 billion in 2022 with 55% of growth rate, compared with 42.2 billion won in 2021 and its operating profit also incredibly increased from 2.8 billion won to 10.9 billion won.On the 18th, ASICLAND announced that it has submitted a preliminary examination request to the Korea Exchange, and has commenced the procedures for listing on the KOSDAQ market within this year. Samsung Securities has been appointed as the lead underwriter for the IP Established in 2016, ASICLAND is a leading company in ASIC design services and SoC(System on Chip) development, whose key strengths include a robust partnership with TSMC, providing turnkey services based on an in-depth understanding of TSMC’s process, and securing a wide range of references. It also has developed its own SoC automation design platform and has a proven track record of successful scale-up from development to volume manufacturing.ASICLAND has been selected as an Approved Design Partner(ADP) of Arm, a global intellectual property(IP) company, shortly after its establishment and subsequently obtained the official partner status of TSMC VCA(Value Chain Alliance).Design solution companies typically enter into one-way contracts with specific foundries, as they serve as a bridge between fabless(semiconductor design) companies and a foundry(semiconductor manufacturing) such as TSMC or Samsung Electronics. This is due to concerns about leakage of semiconductor IP security. ASICLAND is the only domestic TSMC design house. It has been reported that the balance of its new development orders has significantly increased recently, in response to the growing demands for global semiconductor process miniaturization, high-performance semiconductor chips, and chiplets. It is rumored that ASICLAND’s high understanding of TSMC’s processes and its global research and development (R&D) competitiveness have had a positive impact. Jongmin Lee, ASICLAND’s CEO, emphasized “ We will diligently complete the IP schedule and finalize the KOSDAQ listing within this year. After the listing, we will accelerate our growth through business expansion, entry into the US market, and enforcement of global competitiveness. Source: THE KOREA ECONOMIC DAILY (link)

​TSMC’s Korean Partner, Isn’t It Only Beneficial to Taiwan? Nonsense  “Pleased TSMC with Front-end design capability as well as Back-end”“Recorded 66 billion won last year and now preparing for an IPO this year”“70% of Korean fabless companies use TSMC’s process, not Samsung’s”“Without ASICLAND, who will connect Korea to TSMC”“Investment in nurturing the fabless ecosystem is necessary, not just manufacturing”  Jongmin Lee, CEO of ASICLAND / Source = ASICLANDDesign houses, which serve as as bridge between fabless (semiconductor design-only) and foundry(semiconductor contract manufacturing) typically sign an exclusive contract with a single foundry due to security concerns. Therefore, it is impossible for a single design house to receive orders for both TSMC and Samsung Electronics simultaneously. As the only TSMC design house in Korea, ASICLAND is the exclusive channel connected to TSMC in Korea due to these characteristics. However, some have raised doubts about whether ASICLAND, a Korean company, is only doing good things for TSMC. “This is the narrow-minded view that doesn’t understand the nature of the semiconductor industry”, responded Jong-min Lee, CEO of ASICLAND. “If ASICLAND were to disappear, the development of K-semiconductors could be hampered, as 70% of Korean fabless companies use TSMC’s process.The following is a Q&A with the CEO. How did you get into the design house business?I majored in semiconductor design in college. After graduating, I joined Hynix, but the atmosphere was not good because the business unit had been divested and executives had been laid off. I resigned after just two years and joined a fabless company, but the company closed down after four years. I had no choice but to challenge myself to start a business, which I had vaguely dreamed of. It was almost like destiny. I made a decision with like-minded juniors to do a design house in earnest and founded the company in 2016.How could ASICLAND, the only partner in Korea, make a partnership with TSMC?I didn’t come from Samsung. While I could have aimed to establish a design house of Samsung, I thought there would be a limitation coming from my background at Hynix. I firmly pledged to partner with TSMC, the global No.1 foundry, and entirely focused on TSMC projects. The typical role of design houses is to support back-end design services, but I tackled both front-end and back-end design, which pleased TSMC. One day, TSMC unexpectedly offered us a partnership. We had achieved our goal much sooner than expected. As a result of our work with TSMC, the company has grown in size. We currently have over 160 employees, including subsidiaries. Since the foundation, we have never experienced a decline in revenue. We achieved around 66 billion won in annual sales last year and recorded an operating profit of around 17%. TSMC’s logo / Sources: TSMCWhat is the TSMC corporate culture like as experienced through the skin?They are foundry geniuses. They have all the global information related to semiconductors like foundry marketing, know-how, networks, and so on. This means they have the leadership in this global foundry market. The level of conversation among engineers is also different. While other foundry companies are busy securing any customer but TSMC prioritizes the reliability of customers. They do not engage in business if they view it as a short-term collaboration, even if they receive high revenue offers.Some say ASICLAND is not doing anything good for Korea or Samsung but only for Taiwan and TSMC.It is a very narrow-minded view. To become a true semiconductor powerhouse, one must have a lot of intellectual property (IP). To do that, expanding the domestic fabless ecosystem is essential. To grow fabless, there must be foundries that can make chips. Most people don't know this, but if there are 100 fabless companies in Korea, 70 of them use TSMC. Why not use Samsung foundry process? What Samsung is building in Pyeongtaek is a high-end process, not the low-end process used by most domestic fabless companies. The number of domestic fabless companies that can use Samsung foundry in Pyeongtaek is very small. Only fabless companies of the size of Qualcomm or Samsung can use it. Domestic fabless companies use low-end processes such as 28, 40, 55, 65, 90, 130, and 180nm. Samsung foundry's low-end process is only around 28nm and 130nm. Even this is a priority for Samsung's design. Samsung is not investing in low-end processes, nor should it. Low-end processes are already legacy processes and are firmly occupied by TSMC like a fortress. Will the foundry occupancy rate increase if Samsung attracts more low-end customers (domestic fabless companies)? No, it will not. Jongmin Lee, CEO of ASICLAND / Source = ASICLANDDo you mean that ASICLAND is essential for Korean fabless to utilize TSMC?Of course. Without us, where would fabless startups, domestic research institutes, and universities design chips? The only foundry that matches both the process and the price is TSMC, and if we don't exist in Korea, domestic fabless companies have no choice but to rely on Taiwanese design houses. Will they treat us better than they treat their own country's fabless companies? Having ASICLAND directly connected to TSMC in Korea is a huge premium. This will be the same in the future. ASICLAND is not helping TSMC, but rather acting as a 'bridge' to effectively utilize TSMC for domestic fabless companies. ASICLAND is putting a lot of effort into allowing even non-mass production designs to be produced through TSMC.Explain more about the difference between Samsung and TSMC’s process.For example, if it is assumed that TSMC has 10 different types of foundry processes, Samsung only has 2-3. American and Japanese fabless companies produce chips using a TSMC process that perfectly fits their design out of 10 available options. However, if Korean fabless companies only use Samsung's process, which has only 2-3 available options, would their chips be competitive? In other words, the key to growth for Korean fabless companies is to effectively utilize TSMC. Of course, if the process that fits perfectly with the desired chip design exists in both Samsung and TSMC, then Samsung foundry should be used. However, it is an undeniable fact that there is a significant difference in the number and competitiveness of processes between TSMC and Samsung. As TSMC has far more process types, domestic fabless companies in Korea have no choice but to use it, and ASICLAND is essential to use it under favorable conditions. Jongmin Lee, CEO of ASICLAND / Source = ASICLANDI know you are preparing for the IPO.When starting my business, the hardest part was definitely money. Initially, we couldn't even get any investment, and even though we had dozens of employees, there were many nights when we had only 2 million won in our bank account and couldn't sleep. As time passed, the importance of the foundry became more apparent, and gradually investment began to come in. Recently, the importance of design houses has also become well known and our performance has stabilized. Now we have to dream bigger. We are preparing for an IPO to expand globally, and plan to present a vision to promote global expansion through listing. Our first target is the U.S. market, where 70% of the world's fabless companies are located. We are planning to establish a U.S. branch and are in the process of concrete planning.Finally, if you have any last words you'd like to share?In the semiconductor industry, once you miss the trend, you can never catch up. Look at Japan, once it fell behind in semiconductors, it still continued to backdown. Even if Japan invests 100 trillion won now to catch up with TSMC and Samsung, can they really succeed? Absolutely not. That's how much steady and strong investment is essential for semiconductors. However, Korean government support is too weak. Even in the K-Chip Act, fabless companies are not included as support targets. Seeing the tax benefits that the US and Taiwan give to semiconductor companies, I feel not only envious but also a sense of crisis. This is a time when semiconductors have become as important as nuclear security. I hope the government will implement strong support policies.  Source: THE KOREA ECONOMIC DAILY (Link)

[ASICLAND's Booth at IEEE EDTM 2023] ASICLAND(CEO Jongmin Lee) announced on the 8th that the company plans to showcase its technological capabilities and strengthen collaboration with domestic and international researchers at 'IEEE EDTM 2023', which is being held at COEX in Seoul until the 10th.IEEE EDTM(IEEE Electron Devices Technology and Manufacturing Conference) is an international conference organized by the IEEE EDS(Electron Devices Society). It is held to present and exchange the latest research results related to semiconductor and electronic technology. Experts in the semiconductor industry and academia attend to discuss technological innovations and market trends, as well as to provide networking and business opportunities.ASICLAND participated as a sponsor of this international conference and showcased its technological capabilities. As the only domestic TSMC VCA (Value Chain Alliance), the company provides services such as MPW (Multi-Project Wafer) for the development of domestic semiconductor R&D. Through this conference, the company plans to strengthen collaboration with domestic and international researchers and promote knowledge-sharing and technological development between the industry and academia.The head of its business development team and senior director, Sean Lee, said, "ASICLAND is the only domestic company among TSMC's eight VCAs around the world," adding that the company is "preparing to showcase Korean technology in the global market." He also stated that the company is receiving "love calls" from companies in the United States and China, as there is currently a lot of interest in the global market.Meanwhile, the US semiconductor publication, 'Semiconductor Review,' recently selected ASICLAND as one of the top 10 companies in the system-on-chip (SoC) field for 2023. The publication reportedly highly evaluated ASICLAND's semiconductor design automation platform. The company said that through this selection, ASICLAND will be shoulder-to-shoulder with global companies such as Renesas, Infineon, and Synopsys. Source: Money Today(Link)

Interview of Jongmin Lee, ASICLAND On the 3rd, Jongmin Lee, CEO of ASICLAND, met with Herald Economy for an interview at the company's headquarters in Yeongtong-gu, Suwon. [Herald; Jihun Kim] "We play a bridge role in making test chips for domestic research institutes or universities. We are helping to develop the domestic chip design industry," said Jongmin Lee, emphasizing that the company is playing a "bridge role" in enhancing the system semiconductor design capabilities of the national research industry.ASICLAND, founded in 2016, is a company that serves as a design house of TSMC, which is the world's top foundry (third-party semiconductor manufacturing). A design house is a company that is responsible for converting the design materials of a fabless (design-only) semiconductor chip company into a physical form that is possible for the foundry (third-party semiconductor manufacturing) to process (backend design) at the intermediate stage between chip design and manufacturing.Among them, ASICLAND facilitates the production of semiconductor test chips from research organizations such as KAIST and ETRI in Korea, which require this intermediate stage, by mediating with TSMC and contributing to the growth of the industry's capabilities. In Korea's major foundry company, the manufacturing process is mainly focused on chip technologies with high-level fabrication processes, such as under 7nm (nanometer, where 1 nm equals one billionth of a meter), resulting in a shortage of factories that can produce research chips with low-level(legacy) fabrication processes.As this infrastructure is lacking in Korea, many research organizations are commissioning ASICLAND to manufacture chips through TSMC. This is because TSMC possesses various process nodes that can manufacture research-oriented chips. According to the CEO, when ASICLAND provides 100 services, about 70% of them are research-related.He emphasized that "in 2021, out of 100 chip-related backend designs, 60 were research projects, and in 2022, out of 70, around 40 were research projects. Although it is a business with low profitability, we are continuing to receive such orders according to the needs of domestic research institutions."ASICLAND aims to go public in September or October this year and is currently working towards that goal. It is evaluated as competitive due to its status as the only domestic partner of TSMC, the world's largest foundry company. In addition to taking care of back-end design with TSMC, which is a pure foundry that performs only the manufacturing process of chip design, ASICLAND is also enhancing its "design platform" business.Through the design platform business, ASICLAND supplies chip platforms to make it easier for domestic small and medium-sized fabless startups to manufacture semiconductors. For example, if there is a startup that wants to produce artificial intelligence (AI) chips, they only need to make the AI chip, and ASICLAND takes care of developing the central processing unit (CPU), peripheral components interconnection (PCIe), memory chip, and other connections related to the AI chip.The CEO explained they have a competitive advantage in providing more diverse processes to foundry customers because they cooperate with TSMC. By connecting with TSMC, they can help fabless companies produce sensors, analog, connectivity, and automotive semiconductors that are unavailable to a domestic foundry company at 180, 65, and 40-nanometer levels. In fact, ASICLAND is involved in AI semiconductor chip designs, such as Saphoen, while expanding its domestic fabless customer base. They participated in the system-on-chip (SoC) design, backend design, and development of SK Telecom's self-developed AI semiconductor chip "Sapheon X220". Lee expressed confidence in ASICLAND's performance growth after going public. He emphasized that the foundry market is forming a duopoly structure between TSMC and Samsung. He stated “While there were over ten companies competing in the 28-nanometer process chip market in the past, now there are only two companies with a monopoly, and TSMC's profitability is on the rise.” and emphasized, “we plan to expand our business next year by forming relationships with global fabless customers, including those in the United States, beyond the domestic fabless market.” <Source: Herald (LINK)>

ASICLAND has been selected as one of the 'Top 10 System-on-Chip SoC Providers in APAC 2023' by the global magazine 'Semiconductor Review.' 'Semiconductor Review' is a renowned magazine specializing in semiconductors based in the United States, covering the latest technologies, trends, and news related to the semiconductor industry. With over 100,000 subscribers, it is a well-known media outlet in the field of semiconductors. Through its selection as one of the 'Top 10 System-on-Chip SoC Providers in APAC 2023,' ASICLAND has demonstrated its competitiveness and presence in the global market, alongside other leading global companies.  For more information, please refer to an interview with Sean Lee, Senior Director of ASICLAND's Business development team, provided below. https://www.semiconductorreview.com/asciland)>