Silicon Box reveals production commencement
Company is 'leading the pack' to bring affordable, high performance, power-optimized, scalable solutions that enable next-gen large language models (LLM), generative AI, automotive, data centers, and mobile computing.
Silicon Box has revealed that its advanced $2B packaging factory in Singapore has been in mass production for early customers since October 2023, shortly after the grand opening of the factory on July 20, 2023 (Silicon Box launches $2B Advanced Packaging Fab). The 750,000 sq. foot facility has ramped up hiring for 24/7 operations. The company is already forecasting high demand on existing capacity and has successfully closed Series B funding to expand production rapidly.
Silicon Box was founded in 2021 by industry titans from semiconductor design and packaging. Co-founders Dr. Sehat Sutardja and Weili Dai previously founded and led Marvell Technology Group, where Dr. Sutardja was CEO and Ms. Dai was President, respectively. Co-founder and CEO, Dr. Byung Joon (BJ) Han, was formerly CEO of STATS ChipPAC (acquired by JCET in 2015) for twenty years. Dr. Sutardja and Dr. Han combined have more than 800 US patents and a long history of collaboration.
Notably, Silicon Box brings effective chiplet integration capabilities, through its state-of-the-art factory in Singapore. The chiplet concept itself was introduced by Dr. Sutardja at the International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC) in 2015, where he was plenary speaker. Dr. Han is the inventor of semiconductor packaging products, currently shipping over 100 billion annually in unit volume, including quad flat no-lead (QFN).
"Silicon Box is well poised to solve the semiconductor industry's challenges for fast adoption of chiplet. We are leading the pack to bring high performance, power-optimized, affordable, and scalable solutions that enable next-gen large language models (LLM), generative AI, automotive, data centers, and mobile computing globally," said Dr. BJ Han. "Our state-of-the-art factory and advanced panel level packaging are delivering a solution to scale high growth markets, such as AI accelerators, to the masses. This is our first multibillion-dollar factory and we are eager to scale rapidly to support our customers and partners."
Towards a Chiplet Future
Silicon Box is set to bring about a revolution with its semiconductor package design and fabrication methods, from the most advanced AI or edge systems to the simplest circuits.
Current semiconductor chips are hitting a wall in scalability, limited by conventional packaging approaches. Meanwhile, the development and manufacturing cost for chip designers have become cost prohibitive except for the most well-funded players, leaving the industry bottlenecked and consumers paying high prices.
Silicon Box enables chiplet architecture, allowing chip designers freedom from the constraints of a single, monolithic chip for processing. By leveraging multiple smaller chips, interconnected in a single package, chip designers can create the equivalent of "system-on-a-chip" (SoC) in a package. Chiplets enable dramatically better performance, smaller device sizes, and better device reliability. Most importantly, they make it easier for foundries, chip designers, and OSATs to collaborate to build chips for the most cutting-edge applications.
Additionally, Silicon Box's large production format is said to set a new industry standard for large scale, high yield production especially for advanced chiplet-based designs. The company's solutions are more reliable and cost effective due to the standardized packaging process for the shortest chiplet-to-chiplet interconnection, reducing the manufacturing costs for high performance devices by up to 90%, with better thermal and electrical performance. This is especially crucial for the high growth AI accelerator market. Expansion plans for the Singapore factory reflect the severe current shortage in advanced packaging solutions, and Silicon Box's commitment to enabling AI accelerator solutions and bringing them to the masses.
Initial collaborations with customers have yielded groundbreaking results. "We're deeply excited to partner with Silicon Box. Their unique packaging approach has dramatically shortened our time to market, while allowing us to gain a significant lead on our competitors," assured Ravi Krishnamoorthy, Vice President and Managing Director at Zerro Power Systems, a developer of next generation controllers and drivers.
Series-B
Silicon Box has announced a successful $200M Series B fundraising round, bringing the company to over a one-billion-dollar valuation. All three founders were investors in the round. Other strategic investors into Silicon Box include BRV Capital; Event Horizon Capital; Grandfull Convergence Fund; Hillhouse Capital; the corporate venture arm of Lam Research, Lam Capital; Maverick Capital; Prasedium Capital; Tata Electronics; TDK Ventures; and UMC Capital.
"As we bump up against size and cost constraints in front-end SoC design, chiplet architectures are emerging as an innovative solution given their higher manufacturing yields and functional reuse of IP, among other benefits. Especially as industry standards align, chiplet adoption should grow rapidly," Andrew Homan, Managing Director and Technology Sector Head at Maverick Capital, explained. "Silicon Box is a key enabler of chiplet adoption, given its advanced packaging technologies that achieve industry leading interconnect density and power performance at a still cost-effective price point. We are committed to supporting BJ, Sehat, Weili and the Silicon Box team in catalyzing this important paradigm shift in chip production."
TDK Ventures Investment Director Henry Huang commented, "The Silicon Box chiplet design is truly innovation at its finest. The company's recently opened 750,000 square foot facility has proven the concept is totally viable, and competitors in the industry have already taken notice. TDK Ventures is proud to be a part of their success and eagerly look forward to supporting their future endeavors."
"Chiplets are the future and what Silicon Box has achieved for chiplet deployment, in a short time, already represents significant breakthroughs for the industry," said Kwan Yoon, Chief Investment Officer at BRV Capital. "Our team was impressed that Silicon Box delivered the most innovative solutions that are high performance, energy conscious, reliable and affordable while addressing such a key industry bottleneck. Silicon Box and its technologies are extremely important for the semiconductor industry, and the digital world."
