Big fish will grow bigger, risk-taking smaller fish will thrive
It’s Christmas 2021. The semiconductor industry is flooded with income: all fabs run at or above maximum capacity, volumes are in short supply while prices of wafers and ICs are floating up. Electronics are everywhere in our lock-down offices and private homes, and in many other systems and services that all of us use (almost) every day.
Cash is flowing in abundantly in our industry. This cash needs to roll … or else its value is slowly melting away – you know: negative interests and high inflation… There is no better option than to invest… in big(ger), small(er) and new(er) fish. Foundries invest in more capacity, while IC design companies focus faster on new products. New ideas will have more opportunity.
Author: Koen Verhaege Title: CEO at Sofics BV
- Koen took his first steps in the ESD world at IMEC (1990-1995) where he pioneered the ESD group. He crossed the Atlantic to join Sarnoff Corporation (1996-2000) in Princeton, NJ, to innovate on-chip ESD design – first as an engineer and later as a group leader.
- In 2000, he co-founded Sarnoff Europe and moved back to the old world (Belgium) where he built a world-wide IP licensing business for on-chip device solutions for EOS and ESD.
- Koen with his wife Inge bought out Sarnoff Europe in 2009 and renamed the company Sofics – which stands for Solutions for ICs. Sofics today licenses on-chip EOS/ESD solutions worldwide to more than 100 licensees (large and small) and for all major foundries and process nodes. On average one new IC including Sofics solutions is released for mass production every new business day. Beyond device solutions, Sofics develops and licenses robust circuit solutions as well. Sofics provides custom analog/specialty I/O’s and well as PHY’s.
- Koen authored and co-authored various scientific papers and is named inventor or co-inventor on various patents.
