Ambiq, a Texas, USA, based semiconductor manufacturing company, has opened a new technology design centre in Singapore.
The company, which develops ultra-low-power semiconductor solutions, will focus on expanding its design, verification, and validation engineering teams in Singapore to support the company’s growth, Ambiq’s chairman and CEO, Fumihide Esaka, said.
Ambiq already has a centre of excellence in Singapore which it established in 2020.
Esaka said the company’s Singapore regional hub would serve as a major centre for the future design of devices based on Ambiq’s subthreshold power optimised technology (Spot) platform.
The Spot platform uses standard transistors in a non-standard operating mode to build “reliable, robust semiconductors” that consume less energy in a cost-effective and mainstream manufacturing process, Esaka said.
EDBI, the international investment arm of the Economic Development Board of Singapore (EDB), is a major investor in the company.
It led Ambiq’s series E fundraising in 2018 and since then has been supporting the company’s regional expansion in Asia, Esaka said.
Ambiq's Apoll4 Blue system on chip (SOC) powers the TraceTogether tokens distributed by Singapore for Covid-19 contact tracing.
The tokens, introduced in June 2020, were a significant milestone for Ambiq as it was a result of a multi-party collaboration with EDBI, Excelpoint, iWOW, and various government agencies, Esaka said.
As Ambiq continues to diversify and expand its businesses worldwide, the new technology design centre is a “further testament to our commitment and investment in Singapore for future success, allowing us to grow our development teams effectively," Esaka said.
He added that Ambiq, which has shipped more than 150 million units as of February, aims to install artificial intelligence (AI) in a variety of mobile and portable devices, using the company’s ultra-low-power SoC solutions.
