[Editor's Note] A paradigm shift from general-purpose semiconductors to custom semiconductors produced in-house is expected. Customers are increasingly requesting customized semiconductor development to equip their products with semiconductors that are suitable for them. As the attention on the system semiconductor ecosystem increases, SemiFive, a fabless company that participated in Semiconductor Show 2022, also attracted a lot of attention from visitors.

We met with SemiFive Managing Director Jong-gi Kim and heard about SemiFive's solutions and trends and prospects in the system semiconductor field.

■ Please introduce Semifive.

Simply put, it is a company that provides an efficient design platform. Founded in 2019, it has completed the construction of platform technology and infrastructure after attracting a total of 170 billion won in investments over three rounds to date.

Recently, we have established global design centers in India, Vietnam, and the US, centered around our Korean headquarters. We have now grown into a company with a total of 400 employees. SemiFive is recognized as a unique company providing design platforms within the Samsung Foundry ecosystem.

■ Why is platform technology needed?

In the mid-to-late 2010s, many innovations were made in the system semiconductor sector due to process advancements. Performance had been doubling every two years in accordance with Moore's Law, but as the 2010s came to an end, process innovations were delayed.

Meanwhile, the semiconductor market has become increasingly in need of custom semiconductors customized for each company according to usability, rather than using CPUs provided by Intel, SoCs by Qualcomm, and GPUs made by Nvidia as before.

For example, Apple is no longer using Intel products and is developing Apple M1 and M2 chips, and Tesla is also developing its own GPUs to differentiate itself from general-purpose semiconductors.

The problem here is that these custom semiconductors are expensive and time-consuming to manufacture. Therefore, while large companies such as Apple and Tesla can manufacture custom semiconductors, small and medium-sized companies and startups have limited access to custom semiconductors.

Accordingly, the design platform is a solution that can manufacture semiconductors with an efficiency of over 50%, going beyond simply being 10-20% more efficient than traditional semiconductor design methods.

■ Please briefly introduce Semifive’s representative solutions.

Chips made through Semifive’s platform are being exhibited here at the Semiconductor Show. After the platform is made, when a customer comes, if they request the IP and functions they want to install on the platform, they can quickly manufacture it by putting in the IP.

Normally, it takes 1 year and 6 months to 2 years to produce a product, but SemiFive has established a structure that can produce samples in just 6 months through pre-made platforms and automated technologies.

■ Recently, there was news that Samsung Electronics and you are focusing on developing AI chips for HPC in the 5nm process. If you could answer about the news, such as major collaborations with Samsung,

One platform cannot cover everything. That's why we're approaching it by creating a platform in a specific area and then covering adjacent areas. The product presented by Semifive is a platform completed last year based on 14 nanometers.

The platform currently being manufactured using a 5nm process is focused on the next-generation HPC field and uses the latest technologies such as GDDR6 and PCIe Gen 5.

It is expected that development will be completed by the end of the year or early next year and sales will begin targeting the global market.

■ The company is growing through domestic and international M&A, including the acquisition of Hanatech last year and the acquisition of Analog Beats early this year. Semifive's future business strategy and goals are:

This can be largely explained by two factors: advancement of platform technology and entry into the global market.

First, the advancement of platform technology is an acquisition and merger that was carried out to achieve this goal, as the purpose of the acquisition of Analog Bits. A wide variety of technologies called IP are included in the platform. For example, IP is one of the important elements of platform technology, such as enabling various functions to communicate with each other or communicate with other semiconductors.

Analog Beats is a company with a long history in the US, and their first goal is to advance their platform technology by internalizing their IP and technology.

Secondly, we are aiming to enter the global market. The domestic system semiconductor market is very small. As a result, we need to enter markets such as the US and Chinese markets, and in this regard, we are seeking to enter the US market through the 5nm HPC platform mentioned above.

In order to capture global customers in this US market, a certain amount of engineering resource pool is needed. That is why we have acquired three design houses so far, including Hanatech, and we can say that all of them were acquisitions to secure an engineering pool.

We currently have 400 employees, and we aim to increase that to 500 by next year, to become a leading company that does not lag behind in the global market.

■ Please tell us about the outlook for the system semiconductor market and SemiFive’s vision.

If we say that until the mid-to-late 2010s, there was a lot of growth centered on general-purpose semiconductors, I think that the current growth will be driven largely by custom semiconductors.

In the midst of this, SemiFive has a vision to leap forward as a new global hub by providing solutions to such efficiency and absorbing the demand for custom semiconductors in the expensive and inefficient custom semiconductor sector.