Imagination CEO: Innovate in adversity and move towards a better future

“As the epidemic continues to spread and relations between major countries have become cold, the past year has been turbulent for individuals and businesses. At the end of 2019, no one can predict our current situation, so the next 12 months and beyond are equally difficult to predict and plan. However, after witnessing how the entire world, especially the semiconductor industry, responds to the development of the epidemic, it also makes us realize that more positive things will continue to come.

“

Author: Simon Beresford-Wylie, CEO of Imagination Technologies

As the epidemic continues to spread and relations between major countries have become cold, the past year has been turbulent for individuals and businesses. At the end of 2019, no one can predict our current situation, so the next 12 months and beyond are equally difficult to predict and plan. However, after witnessing how the entire world, especially the semiconductor industry, responds to the development of the epidemic, it also makes us realize that more positive things will continue to come.

Beneficiaries and losers

The scale of the semiconductor industry is huge, and many areas have been affected, some of which have experienced a slowdown in development. For example, the deployment of large-scale infrastructure and smart cities has slowed down because the government has concentrated its time and funds on fighting the epidemic. On the other hand, since the outbreak of the epidemic, the consumer market has grown strongly.

With the changes in the way people work, play, consume, and socialize, the importance of technology in the consumer field is more important than ever. Laptops, smartphones and digital entertainment have become indispensable during the epidemic. There is another important industry in the semiconductor field, and its product cycle is much longer than 12 months. This is the automotive industry. Despite the current decline in car sales, it is still an important market with high demand for semiconductors. It usually takes five years for a car to go on the market, so automakers are starting to plan for the future of autonomous vehicles (AV).

Innovate in adversity

We have clearly seen the desire for new technologies in every vertical market in the semiconductor industry, as well as the increasingly rapid adoption and deployment of new technologies. Artificial intelligence (AI) and 5G are just two examples of many new technologies. The epidemic has further highlighted their criticality and importance and promoted rapid and large-scale deployment.

5G data network provides a new communication standard. It has unparalleled ability to transmit large amounts of data with extremely low latency and without interruption, which is very important for home streaming media or AV engineers. The early deployment of the 5G network coincided with the time of the epidemic, and the large demand for data during the epidemic further promoted its rapid deployment.

AI is another area that has been pushed to the forefront due to the outbreak. AI has made significant progress in the medical field, and it helps to establish a virus transmission model and accelerate vaccine development. In addition, AI technology is increasingly used in applications such as last-mile delivery services, drug transportation, and automated manufacturing.

The epidemic is a severe challenge for governments around the world. In such a global adversity, innovation and excellent engineering capabilities have become the top priorities. The new crown epidemic has accelerated people to embrace an AI-driven future and demonstrated how to use AI to improve the performance and efficiency of edge applications.

The accelerated development of technology promoted by the epidemic will not disappear anytime soon. In the foreseeable future, the new crown epidemic will still exist, it will continue to affect and shape consumer behavior, and it will also place new demands on the semiconductor industry.

The impact of trade disputes

International trade is another area affected by the epidemic. The trade dispute between China and the United States does not seem to end in the short term. This has affected many markets including semiconductors. The Chinese semiconductor market is still highly dependent on imports from other countries. For the Chinese government, this is an important issue related to the development of the country, so they are working to substantially and rapidly improve their semiconductor industry capabilities and scale.

An important factor in current trade disputes is who owns semiconductor intellectual property (IP), especially for graphics processing units (GPUs). GPU has long gone beyond the category of only graphics rendering, and has now been integrated into all applications from cloud computing to AV. Currently, most GPU IPs are held by American companies, and if the restrictions are tightened, this will cause problems. As a company headquartered in the United Kingdom, Imagination is the only non-US company with GPU IP, which allows us to work more closely with innovative Chinese OEMs.

Times are changing

The semiconductor industry around the world is changing, and at the same time, the basic operation of the semiconductor business is also changing.

For many manufacturers using semiconductor technology, IP authorization is becoming an increasingly popular choice. Obtaining the authorization of the required IP is a more cost- and time-efficient solution. Many problems that manufacturers need to solve have already been solved in advance, and they don’t need to repeat the design. In this way, manufacturers can spend their time studying the functions and features of the product, so that the product can be different and win business. This approach can also significantly shorten the time to market and reduce development costs.

Another major change we will see is that compared to a complete system-on-chip (SoC), there will be more development towards chiplet design. In recent years, manufacturers have unanimously hoped to use lower process nodes to build all their products, making the entire SoC smaller. However, because the size of the process node is still evolving, it will greatly increase manufacturing costs and bring higher risks. A better approach is to use 3nm or 5nm architecture where necessary, while allowing other systems to run on higher but cheaper and more reliable process nodes, which can greatly optimize system costs and simplify design difficulties.

The trend toward small chips will push IP companies such as Imagination to provide more complete services that can run seamlessly on various systems.

Towards the goal

The current global epidemic is a tragedy for many people and companies. The impact it has caused has fundamentally changed the way the world operates, and will continue to have a profound impact on the normal operation of global businesses. However, not everything is negative. In difficult times, innovations emerge one after another and new technologies continue to grow. Enterprises and practitioners who promote innovation and technological development will also benefit from this.

Whether it is AI, Internet of Things (IoT) or processing technology, every member of the semiconductor industry will play an important role in promoting the development of future technology in this adversity. Imagination Technologies is well aware of this and will continue to provide the world’s leading IP products to assist all semiconductor companies and practitioners to enhance their competitive advantages.