Profile I Geert-Jan Davids
“I love what I do, it’s totally fascinating!”
Neil Tyler talks with Geert- Jan Davids, the founder and CEO of EquipIC supply chain, a company that provides turnkey ASIC services for fabless semiconductor companies
G
eert-Jan Davids or GJ is a semiconductor industry veteran. In the business for nearly thirty years,
before founding EquipIC in 2002, he worked at Philips Research Laboratories both in The Netherlands and in the US where he was the Senior Member of Technical Staff at the company’s operations in Sunnyvale, and where he was involved in the development of advanced CMOS LOCOS isolation technology. After leaving Philips he served as the Sales and Business Manager (Europe) for TSMC, a first for a European, and then moved to UMC where he worked as Vice- President of European Sales. GJ graduated from Delft University in The Netherlands with an MS in Applied Physics and is the author of a number of different patents.
EquipIC supply chain was set up to
provide turnkey ASIC services for fabless semiconductor companies and ‘system houses’. Headquartered in The Netherlands and operating internationally, the company has been active in the IC market for over ten years and offers a variety of different services from manufacturing, test and assembly from IC prototype, through to full volume production. It can also help companies with issues concerning design. Originally a one man operation the company, as GJ explains, “now has extensive experience in all aspects of IC sourcing whether that’s in process or design, production and testing. I think that it’s the breadth of that experience that is our key strength. Many of the people who work for the company came from NXP or have Philips’ backgrounds and knew me when I worked there, so they do have a working knowledge of large-scale operations. Many of our competitors originated out of semi-government organisations or were spun out of universities. We are truly independent.
14 April 2012
We’re self- funding which gives us much greater flexibility.” That depth of experience means that customers can outsource production with confidence and focus on product development and marketing.
“Ours is a flexible business model and our independence from wafer
foundries as well as test and assembly houses, allows us to produce what I believe is the most effective solution for our customers,” explains GJ. Competition
comes from
companies located in the US, Europe and in Taiwan.
Plans for the future
I first met GJ back at the end of 2011 and then he talked of the company hitting revenues of 12m euros this year. While still optimistic that the company will continue to grow strongly in 2012 he concedes that the target is likely to be missed. “As in any business customers come and go and a number of long running programmes with which we were involved have tailed off sooner than we originally expected, and there is a tendency for businesses that reach a certain size to want to deal with suppliers directly. But, by and large, I am very pleased with the range of new projects that are coming along and while we might not hit 12m euros this year I’m confident we will do so in two to three years.”
That confidence is well founded as the company has a growing list of projects in France and is seeing traction in central Europe, Russia and Brazil.
“Our work in Brazil is in no small part due to the relationship we established with Perceptia, a US design house that specialises in advanced mixed-signal chip design. The partnership was set up in
Components in Electronics
November last year and has enhanced our ability to configure more efficient foundry independent supply-chain solutions and help customers to develop even more innovative ASIC designs especially in markets for high-performance wired and wireless communications.” According to GJ the building of
relationships with chip designers, test houses and foundries is a key element of the company’s business model. “Effective partnerships are critical to delivering successful chip designs within the tight time and cost constraints that we see across the market,” he explains. Currently EquipIC is working with over 50 chips whether in prototype or volume production.
“While many of our customers are small fabless companies we are seeing more business from larger system houses, the kind of companies without the resources to realise next generation devices. Medium sized businesses that don’t have their own chips or the necessary infrastructure or experts to produce ICs are turning to us. It takes time to develop a production ready
ASIC and if you are working in certain markets such as satellites or high end video conferencing, for example, demand may be very limited, say just 10,000 chips a year. “We can pool our customer’s
production requirements so we are better able to manage smaller production runs. Low volumes are difficult to organise, even for divisions within very large businesses.”
Philips Research Laboratories GJ graduated from Delft in 1983 and from there went to work at the Philips Research Laboratories.
“I chose to study physics because of the
breadth and depth of the subject. I didn’t want to find myself studying too narrow a field and limit my options. My MS was in nuclear physics and I became interested in engineering when I needed to put together scientific equipment to help my research.” Philip’s Research Laboratories were one of the most desirable places to work in the 1980s and when he joined in 1983, GJ was one of just three people hired that year.
www.cieonline.co.uk Geert-Jan Davids
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