As anyone familiar with the semiconductor industry knows, there’s a lot of variation in what semiconductor design-based organizations make. Tensoft’s customers include companies that make silicon and compound integrated circuits, MEMS devices, LED, RF, solid state, and solar technologies. All of these need to manage global production across multiple vendors. And, they also need to manage intricate processes, such as multiple die packages or multichip modules and sensors.
In the old days, more mature product companies deployed manufacturing software systems as their complexity increased. Yet for growing high tech businesses in pre-ramp, the cost of that was prohibitive, even though relying on entry level systems and/or spreadsheets created significant obstacles to growth. And, the option of trying to customize a mass market ERP / MRP system to the unique product configuration and inverted Bill of Materials (iBOM) models of this industry promised huge cost with poor results.
So what’s the big deal with finding a good ERP/supply chain solution for a semiconductor startup? The bottom line is that the key difference between a startup and a mature chip company is shipment volume. Pre-revenue chip companies already have a ton of operational production complexity. That complexity increases exponentially as production ramps. These companies need to have systems and structures in place to support this hockey stick growth, and to meet the required product and industry standards.
That’s why design-based startups need to adopt an intelligent operations and supply chain solution as early as possible, to support:
- key process automation;
- specialized functionality;
- industry know-how;
- an acceptable OpEx investment;
- and the ability to scale.
The diagram below summarizes the typical challenges of a startup while moving from an early stage design process through production ramp.
Tensoft has deep, longstanding experience working with both startups and mature companies in the semiconductor industry. Today, we deliver a trusted SaaS solution to the semiconductor ecosystem, Tensoft SemiOps. More importantly, we offer an version of this designed specifically for startups, Tensoft SemiOps Express. This solution has helped support many Tensoft customers through their product ramp, and beyond. For more information about Tensoft SemiOps Express – or any of our products and services – please contact us.
To learn how to ramp a startup while managing “The Chaotic Path to Production Clarity”, please click here. For additional insight, watch this on-demand webcast on “Challenges to Scaling Production Ramp.”