The Future is Silicon
Swindon Silicon Systems, a Sensata Technologies company, will use this year’s Sensor + Test exhibition to highlight the benefits of Application Specific ICs (ASICs) and how embracing silicon gives a product a genuine technical and commercial advantage.
According to Richard Mount, Sales and Marketing Director at Swindon, a whole new generation of manufacturers are turning to silicon.
“Many of these new generation manufacturers are behind a variety of innovative, high volume applications which are being described by many as Megatrends and are driven by the market drivers of electrification, autonomy, smart and connected and clean and efficient.
“Examples include the Smart Factory and the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), electric and hybrid vehicles, autonomous driving and all manner of applications that require sensor interfaces. These are all applications where silicon will play a major part in a product by adding functionality in a smaller footprint and providing the commercial advantage.” Adds Mount.
Many Advantages
Embracing silicon brings many other advantages in addition to functionality, size and cost. An ASIC solution will reduce a user’s inventory and bill of materials (BOM) while protecting its Intellectual Property (IP). The wrongful use of IP is a major threat to all technology companies and many methods can be used to ensure the security of such a valuable asset. ASICs provide a solution where reverse engineering of the device is difficult if not impossible to achieve.
Customers also choose the ASIC route to guarantee component supply for the lifetime of their product with no gaps in availability. This is in sharp contrast to a solution built using standard components whose manufacturers readily consign them to the obsolescence bin once the part no longer make financial sense to the supplier.
Swindon is a leader in high performance, low-cost mixed signal ASICs and integrated MEMS sensor interface solutions and is a major supplier of single package devices across many industrial sectors. Swindon is the global leader and foremost supplier of ASIC/MEMS solutions for Tyre Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS), supplying approximately half of the Worldwide demand.
Members of the Swindon Silicon Systems team will be on hand at Sensor + Test 2019- Hall 5 Stand 334 – to highlight the advantages of these single package devices including Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) and integrated MEMs sensor interface solutions, System on Chip (SoC) as well as System in Package (SiP) devices.
Swindon will also provide an insight into the company’s full turn key (FTK) solution which commences with the ASIC specification, design, simulation, layout and verification and continues with the evaluation, qualification and in-house production test (both wafer probe and packaged devices) of the ASIC. This also includes wafer fabrication, packaging and evaluation of engineering samples, pre-production and production devices.
