Ridgetop Group & BaySand: Whole greater than Sum of Parts

Ridgetop Group, a complex company based in Tucson, announced a “wide-ranging” partnership with San Jose-based BaySand to “leverage their complementary skills” and offer to SoC developers in Silicon Valley and Asia “design expertise and FPGA-to-ASIC conversion for mass production using Ridgetop Group technology.”

Together the companies say they will “work cooperatively to develop a series of new applications to increase their existing mixed-signal IP portfolios.”

Considering the growing emphasis on IP in the semiconductor supply chain, this news is of particular interest. The implication being IP companies need to provide design services to succeed. Ridgetop Group is an IP company, BaySand a design company. Together they provide what the market needs, good IP and design services tailored exactly to the system integration profile of a particular class of IP.

In fact, this partnership offers even more. Potential customers could look to BaySand as a design services with its “Silicon Platform”, evaluate the appropriateness of Ridgetop IP for a particular project, and then decide to use a mix of IP from Ridgetop and other vendors to round out their design. It’s a win-win for everyone.

Craig Wentzel, SVP of Worldwide Business Operations at Ridgetop Group, confirms this optimism in the Press Release: “Ridgetop Group and BaySand together will be a powerhouse of mixed-signal IP and service offerings. BaySand will be a creative and formidable partner marketing and selling our IP, general products and services throughout Silicon Valley and Asia.”

Moazzem Hossain, EVP for Design Solution at BaySand, doubles down on that optimism: “The benefits of combining Ridgetop Group’s IP portfolio with ours and our ASIC capabilities will offer shorter time to market and lower-cost manufacturing. Our partnership will catapult Ridgetop Group and its IP portfolio into new application and markets.”

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Per Press Release

Ridgetop Group, founded in 2000, specializes in the development of advanced InstaCell and PDKChek microelectronic test structures, the ProChek family of semiconductor characterization instruments and mini-QStar test modules, and silicon-proven, mixed-signal IP, including MEMS-based 3D sensor technology. It has a unique, collaborative IP design portfolio and specializes in services and products whereby predictive reliability, diagnostics, and prognostics software creates value-added results for products ranging from ICs to complex systems in commercial and military aerospace applications.

BaySand is a fabless semiconductor company and leader in Application Configurable ASICs, targeting short time-to-market and cost-effective ASIC solutions, BaySand’s patented Metal Configurable Standard Cell technology and Field Configurable DSP architecture provides ASIC designers with solutions with low NRE, low power, and low unit cost. BaySand is recognized for providing a unique Silicon Shuttle offering, ASIC UltraShuttle-65.

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Tags: BaySand, Craig Wentzel, Moazzem Hossain, Ridgetop Group

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