As artificial intelligence (AI) spreads, the semiconductors that corporations want are diverging, driving rapid growth in the custom semiconductor (ASIC) market. As a result, design houses that support chip design are expanding their role beyond simple outsourcing firms to become key partners that develop chips with customers.
Semifive, an ASIC platform company, started as an official design solution partner (DSP) of Samsung Electronics Foundry. Based on its experience supporting design, verification, and mass production linkage for customers seeking to use Samsung Electronics Foundry processes, the company expanded its business scope into a turnkey platform that provides the entire process from securing semiconductor intellectual property (IP) to system on chip (SoC) design, verification, and mass production support.
Even if a customer has only a semiconductor idea, the company works together through the steps needed to produce an actual chip. About 270 engineers are in Korea, and about 470 including overseas subsidiaries are carrying out a range of ASIC projects for AI Semiconductor, data centers, and automobiles. Semifive's consolidated sales in the first half were 94.7 billion won, up about 97% from a year earlier.
Executive Vice President Yun Seok-hyeon (46), who leads Semifive's LD Center SoC1 Team, is an SoC expert who has handled front-end logic design for about 20 years. After graduating from Ajou University's Department of Electronic Engineering, he researched SoC and ASIC in its graduate school and built about 14 years of SoC design experience at Telechips, which develops automotive SoCs. He joined Semifive in 2021.
Meeting at the Seongnam headquarters on the 27th of last month, Yun emphasized that the competitiveness of design houses in the AI era is "speed." In the past, performance and power efficiency came first, but recently customers see how quickly a product can be brought to market as the most important factor. As development cycles shorten, the ability to reduce errors from the earliest design stages has become the key differentiator.
Yun cited "tenacity" as the mark of a good SoC engineer. Because SoCs are hardware that are hard to modify once they tape out (design completion), even small errors must be pursued to the end from the initial design phase. The growing importance of "shift left," which moves design and verification as far forward as possible, stems from the same reason.
He said the ASIC market will further segment, expanding the role of design houses. As new technologies such as chiplets and three-dimensional integration (3D IC) spread, platform capabilities that span not only design but also IP, verification, and packaging will become more important. "Ultimately, our goal is to build an organization that can offer solutions no matter what semiconductor a customer asks for," Yun said. "Korea's SoC industry also needs an ecosystem where customers, design firms, and IP corporations grow together." The following is a Q&A with Yun.
― How has the role of SoC design engineers changed in the AI era?
"Semiconductors are not an industry that changes overnight. AI is not a technology that suddenly appeared. But the semiconductors customers want have become far more diverse. In the past we designed around specific product lines; now we have to understand a range of fields such as AI, data centers, and automobiles. The ability to connect multiple technologies to solve customer requirements has become important."
― Why did you choose a design house?
"The biggest reason is the ability to experience a variety of products. At a fabless (chip design company), the same product lines are often developed repeatedly, but at a design house, the chips made for each customer are all different. The biggest appeal is collaborating with customers across industries and accessing new technologies."
― What is Semifive's competitive edge?
"Legacy design houses mostly supported portions of design. Semifive has built a platform that supports the entire process—from securing IP to SoC design, verification, and mass production—when customers bring only an idea. Customers focus on developing core technologies, and we handle overall chip development."
― What do customers see as most important today in ASIC development?
"The biggest change is the schedule. In the past, performance and power efficiency were key; recently, the most critical competitive edge is how quickly you can develop a product and bring it to market. In the AI market, product development cycles have become incomparably shorter than before."
― Why do results differ among engineers even when given the same requirements?
"It ultimately comes down to tenacity. Experience and knowledge alone are not enough. How deeply you dig into a problem and how far you go to verify it determine the outcome. That is why results differ among engineers given the same requirements."
― What makes a good SoC design engineer?
"Perfectionism is needed in the work itself. An SoC is hardware that is hard to modify once it tapes out. Not a few projects invest more than 10 billion won to develop a single chip. Above all, it is critical not to introduce errors from the first stage of design. The industry's recent emphasis on 'shift left' is for the same reason. Development culture is changing to pull design and verification as far forward as possible to reduce errors from the start."
― What was the most challenging project recently?
"It was a chiplet and 3D IC project. Unlike conventional two-dimensional design, we had to connect and stack multiple chips while considering memory, packaging, and back-end processes together. It required not only new technologies but also collaboration with a range of partners."
― How do you see the ASIC market changing?
"I think ASICs will become more segmented. Even in automobiles, it is no longer an era where one chip solves everything; the trend is toward needing different semiconductors by application. The movement of corporations directly developing semiconductors optimized for their own services will continue to expand. Accordingly, the role of design houses will become even more important."
― What kind of organization do you want to build going forward?
"An organization that can propose solutions no matter what kind of semiconductor a customer asks for. The goal is to build a design organization that, with accumulated experiences and technologies, can confidently execute any project."