Category: Press Release

Stephane Cordova joins Thalia as Director of Sales Europe

by Sowmyan RajagopalanPress Release

We’re delighted to welcome Stephane Cordova as the newest member of our growing sales team, serving as Director of Sales Europe

Thalia’s Global VP of Sales, Sou Bennani-McCord, says: “As a representative of Thalia, Stephane brings over 30 years of experience as a business executive in the semiconductor industry and brings expertise in EDA solutions, analog and digital SoC from his work with companies like STMicroelectronics, Kalray and Intento Design. His extensive business and sales experience in the semiconductor industry will be a great asset to the team.”

Commenting on his new role, Stephane said: “I am truly honoured to join the team here at Thalia and help the company achieve its business goals for market expansion. Design IP plays a key role in driving innovation in the semiconductor industry. As the complexity and scale of silicon designs increases, Thalia is redefining that landscape, combining the experience of an expert analog design team with a unique development methodology that underpins the AMALIA platform.”

Welcoming our new Global VP of Sales

by Sowmyan RajagopalanPress Release

Thalia has appointed Sou Bennani-McCord as Global VP of Sales. An important addition to Thalia’s leadership team, Sou will play a key role in the company’s ongoing expansion plans and global growth.

Thalia’s Founder and CEO, Sowmyan Rajagopalan, says: “Sou brings over 25 years of experience in international sales and business development to Thalia having worked for both Intel and Mentor Graphics/Siemens. Her experience with sales in both mature and emerging markets, along with her diverse international business background, puts her in an excellent position to support Thalia’s ambitious growth plans and we’re thrilled that she is joining the management team.”

Sou brings a wealth of semiconductor market experience to her role, alongside a strong foundation of strategic business management expertise for technology companies. Sou also holds a Masters in economics and a Post Graduate degree in business management from the Université des Sciences et Technologies de Lille 1, France.

Commenting on her new role, Sou said: “I am excited to join the talented team at Thalia. Thalia’s unique offering and focus on analog and mixed signal IP re-use offers unmatched value to the semiconductor industry. I look forward to taking an active role in Thalia’s growth and expansion plans.”

Thalia expands footprint in China with appointment of Business Partner Fionn Liu

by Sowmyan RajagopalanPress Release

Thalia has appointed Fionn Liu as Business Partner in China following its recently announced expansion plans. Thalia’s Founder and CEO, Sowmyan R., says: “Fionn will play an important role in our business growth as we introduce the AMALIA platform to China. Geopolitical tensions and the forecasted growth in 2024 in China’s semiconductor market have magnified the need for diversification within the supply chain and a robust second sourcing strategy. As a result, semiconductor businesses need to be able to reuse and migrate their IP seamlessly between foundries and this is where our AMALIA platform can help. By leveraging AMALIA’s unique Technology Analyzer and Circuit Porting capabilities, businesses can reduce IP reuse project timelines by a remarkable 40% to quickly ensure their valuable IP can be efficiently deployed across different foundries, regions, or technologies.”

“Fionn Liu brings a wealth of industry experience spanning almost two decades, making her a valuable asset as we expand our footprint in China. Together, we’re ready to assist businesses within this dynamic environment, offering a seamless bridge between IP reuse and second sourcing strategies.”

With almost 20 years of experience in the semiconductor, IIOT and automotive industries, Fionn’s career encompasses both working for established businesses and advising startups in securing business partners, clients and investors. She has extensive experience in building long-term strategy and ecosystem support for high quality companies, and previously worked as a Product Marketing engineer at GlobalFoundries. She holds an MBA, an MS in Advanced Materials for Micro- and Nano-Systems, and a BE in Material Science.

Thalia announces new additions to its senior management team and Board

by Sowmyan RajagopalanPress Release

Thalia, analog IP reuse specialist, has made a number of appointments to its senior management team and Board to drive its recently announced expansion plans. 

 

Syed Ahmad, VP Product Development

Joining as Vice President of Product Development, Syed Ahmad brings a wealth of experience, having worked with a variety of start-ups and multinational technology companies for over 15 years. Prior to joining Thalia, Syed helped companies to conceptualize, design, plan and manage the delivery of leading-edge communication and collaboration solutions, throughout Europe and USA – bringing an international perspective to all aspects of product management and solutions development. 

Commenting on his appointment, Syed said: “I am working with an excellent and dedicated software development team and looking forward to adding my own mark and supporting team Thalia in the exciting journey to igniting innovation in EDA design automation. More will be revealed as we continue to embark on our path to help our valued customers of semiconductor IPs simplify and drastically reduce time, resources, and costs by leveraging AI & ML algorithms together with some software magic to efficiently speed up IP reuse and deliver design automation.” 

 

Guillaume d’Essautier, Chairman

Guillaume d’Essautier has assumed the role of Chairman on Thalia’s Board. With a distinguished career spanning four decades within the semiconductor industry, d’Essautier brings an extensive track record of leadership roles in prominent companies across Europe and the USA. 

Thalia’s Founder and CEO, Sowmyan Rajagopalan, says “As Board Chairman, Guillaume will play a leading strategic role in guiding our business through its next exciting stage of growth as we broaden our AMALIA platform and expand our geographical reach. Guillaume is highly-respected within the semiconductor industry and his expertise will be invaluable to the Thalia team and business.”

Most recently Guillaume was CEO of DelfMEMS. Prior to that he was CEO of ADD semiconductor which was acquired by Atmel in 2011. Other businesses that have benefited from his leadership include picoCHIP, Cadence, IBM, Rockwell, GEC-Plessey and Philips. He also holds an MSc in Material Science and an MBA from INSEAD. 

 

Ron Black, Board Director

Ron Black, CEO of Codasip, a German EDA and RISC-V IP company, has joined Thalia as a Board Director. Ron has over 30 years of industry experience in semiconductors, software, design automation, and IP. He has run a total of ten global technology businesses and been a director or advisor at many more, all of which involved scaling and/or corporate transformations.

Commenting on his appointment, Ron said: “I am excited to join Thalia, which is poised for dynamic growth through its class-leading EDA tools that help customers efficiently scale and optimize their analog/RF designs across process technology nodes.”  

Thalia’s strategic leadership appointments underscore the company’s dedication to pioneering advancements in EDA design automation and transforming the semiconductor IP reuse landscape. 

Thalia Secures $2.7 Million Funding to Strengthen Position as Leading IP Reuse Partner for Semiconductor Industry

by Sowmyan RajagopalanPress Release

Thalia, a prominent analog IP reuse specialist, has announced the successful completion of a substantial funding round, propelling the company into its next phase of growth. The $2.7 million (£2.125 million) investment is lead by Mercia Ventures, who has backed the company since 2014, alongside continued support from Deepbridge Capital and private investor Guillaume d’Eyssautier. The funding will fuel Thalia’s ambitious expansion plans, broaden its operational scope, and drive the productization of its cutting-edge AMALIA IP reuse platform.

“With the increasing demand for second-sourcing to unlock new markets and address evolving requirements, Thalia stands as the ideal strategic partner,” says Sowmyan Rajagopalan, CEO of Thalia. “Our AMALIA platform provides a proven IP-reuse solution that enables semiconductor businesses to, for example, quickly and efficiently migrate existing IP designs into the sub-20nm range to align with the industry’s shift in this direction for better performance and power consumption.” He continues: “This latest funding will enable us to broaden the AMALIA portfolio further, expand our geographical presence and resources and so offer our customers even greater opportunities and support.”

Thalia has already embarked on sales expansion initiatives in Europe, Israel, and China and will soon announce additions to its management team including well-known experts from within the industry. The AMALIA portfolio is also being broadened to address cutting edge process technologies in 12FF and smaller. The company has also recently announced a customer evaluation program for its AMALIA software suite, which offers companies the opportunity to trial the latest version free for 30 days.

Ashwin Kumaraswarmy from lead investor Mercia Ventures added: “Semiconductor chip design is a manual and painstaking process and skilled engineering teams are rare. Thalia’s platform automates the whole process, enabling companies to diversify their product ranges quickly and cost effectively to meet evolving demand and reach new markets. It offers a comprehensive solution that no other platform can match. The funding will help the company to gain further commercial traction and establish itself as a leader in the industry.”

Commenting on their ongoing support, David Blake, Associate Investment Director at Deepbridge Capital, said: “We are delighted to continue supporting Thalia on this next stage of their exciting commercial journey. Highly innovative tech companies, such as Thalia, are exactly what the Enterprise Investment Scheme is designed to support.”

Thalia’s AMALIA IP reuse platform has received global recognition, enabling companies worldwide to enhance their product development efforts with a cost- and time-efficient solution for migrating existing product lines to new wafer fabs and process nodes. The AMALIA platform has been validated on over 50 IPs ranging from RF to Baseband to PMIC to PLL/ADC, many of which are already in commercial use, solidifying Thalia’s position as an industry leader.

Thalia brings AMALIA IP reuse platform to Israel

by PRPress Release

Cologne, Germany, 17 August 2022 – Thalia, provider of analog and mixed-signal circuit IP reuse platform, today announced its expansion into the Israel market and the appointment of Motty Houli, from TechLink Global Ltd., to represent Thalia and its AMALIA IP reuse platform in the country.  

Since Intel established a key design centre in Israel in the 1970s, the country has been renowned as having one of the semiconductor industry’s most active start-up sectors. A Semico Research report in 2020 showed that Israel was second only to the US in terms of semiconductor start-up activity. The country now has over 150 native fabless semiconductor design companies, plus dozens of the world’s leading semiconductor companies operating strategically important design centres. 

Motty Houli brings more than 25 years of local market expertise and contacts throughout the industry, both at the semiconductor and system level. Having started his career as a chip designer, Motty Houli is well positioned to understand the needs of Thalia’s customers and the potential for Thalia’s IP reuse platform. 

Thalia’s AMALIA IP reuse platform is employed by companies around the world to maximise their investments in development efforts, as well as ensuring companies have a cost and time-efficient solution to migrate their existing product lines onto new wafer fabs and process nodes. AMALIA has delivered over 40 analog and mixed signal Ips, many in silicon and in commercial use, ranging in applications from, Wifi, BLE IP, image sensors, ADCs, PLL and Power Management IPs. 

The benefits of Thalia’s AMALIA platform are increasingly important to designers during the current period of tight capacity in the semiconductor industry. 

Sowmyan Rajagopalan, Thalia CEO, commented, “Israel is a market that’s been of interest for a long time. A lot of companies we engage with have design operations and decision makers in the country. We are pleased to have Motty as a sales rep in the region. The crunch in the semiconductor capacity is highlighting the importance of strategic, planned analog IP reuse as part of a company’s roadmap. This is driving our need to expand globally to serve this growing and increasingly urgent requirement.” 

Thalia upgrades Design Enabler with enhanced ML algorithm delivers optimized performance and optimal layout options

by PRPress Release

30 May, Cologne, Germany – Thalia Design Automation Ltd., provider of analog and mixed-signal circuit IP reuse platform, today announced its core Design Enabler product has been enhanced to significantly boost the value it brings to product development teams in both optimizing the performance of migrated designs and improving or preserving layout.

An improved set of Machine Learning (ML) algorithms in Thalia Design Enabler now presents the designer with the best solution by balancing circuit and layout requirements. The ML algorithms go further in factoring in the impact of layout changes, and further simplify an effective migration by preserving, improving and validating the topology and the floorplan.

Design Enabler is part of the powerful AMALIA IP Reuse Platform that enables cost-effective re-use of analog and mixed signal integrated circuits. The technology agnostic Design Enabler software enables users to efficiently centre designs after migration from one technology to another.

By quickly identifying the minimum set of devices needed to adjust the design the tool reduces the number of changes required in layout while improving performance. With the use AI and machine learning this software can make significant savings of up to 50% time and resources.

The new enhancements to Design Enabler’s algorithms improve time to market advantages and cost savings by balancing improved performance of the design with essential layout requirements to present the designer with multiple solutions.

A Thalia customer case study provides an example of a 45% reduction in design time using the existing Design Enabler:

Thalia has now deployed Machine Learning (ML) across all of its AMALIA platform to analyze waveforms and to propose the ideal solution for the designer, based on differential analyses.

Christopher Yates, VP Software Engineering at Thalia, commented, “Customers using Design Enabler tell us they’re saving at least half of their original re-design time, and with the enhancements we’re announcing today, we expect our customers to see immediate benefits both in optimizing the performance of their design and quickly and easily being able to balance this against the best layout to suite their design.”

Thalia launches next generation IP reuse tools for smarter, more agile semiconductor product development

by PRPress Release

Cologne, Germany – 26 January 2022 – Thalia Design Automation, provider of analog and mixed-signal circuit IP reuse platform, today announced enhancements to its Technology Analyzer and Circuit Porting tools, key parts of its AMALIA IP reuse & development platform. The new features support designers with a broader set of process technologies, plus intelligent machine learning features to significantly accelerate analysis and porting, to further cut costs and improve design productivity.

Thalia now utilizes machine learning across its AMALIA platform to analyze waveforms and propose candidate solutions for designers, based on differential analyses.

Updates to Technology Analyzer and Circuit Porting enable Thalia’s clients to migrate to an even broader range of process technologies, from 350nm down to 22nm including FDSOI. These updates make the AMALIA platform applicable to a deeper range of applications, including: IoT devices, MCUs, 5G infrastructure, Radar, and RF.

In addition, Thalia has enhanced its Technology Analyzer software to extract the noise, DC, AC characteristics over corners and Monte Carlo analysis.

As part of the full AMALIA platform, Thalia’s Technology Analyzer helps IP houses and integrated circuit design companies determine if their IP is suitable for cost-effective reuse and also assist with the selection of the optimal process technology for the required application. The software generates a list of electrically comparable devices between the source and target technology i.e. Mapped devices. Thalia’s Circuit Porting software facilitates the reuse of existing circuits from the source technology to the target technology, by quickly and efficiently migrating schematics, maintaining the floorplan and electrical values. The software uses electrically comparable mapped devices generated by the Technology Analyzer, during the migration process. This ensures the design after migration to be comparable to the starting design and thereby significantly reduces the iterations during circuit verification.

Thalia CEO Sowmyan Rajagopalan commented, “Our customers have experienced the benefits of Technology Analyzer and Circuit Porting and the value they bring to design efficiencies and profitability. It’s no surprise then that these customers are keen for us to extend the capabilities of these powerful tools to support more processes. Meanwhile, the Thalia EDA development team has also evolved the platform’s functionality and user experience: with ML and enhanced GUIs – these value-added features help to ensure Thalia customers experience the very best in design automation.

“Particularly now, when capacity at wafer fabs is tight, it’s important that designers remain agile to access chip manufacturing where it’s available, and where it is cost effective.” Rajagopalan continued, “The enhancements to Technology Analyzer and Circuit Porting extend our leadership in Analog IP reuse tools enabling automated analysis of the process, options and likely outcomes of moving to new processes or fabs.”

For more information about Thalia and the AMALIA Platform, visit https://www.thalia-da.com/

Thalia’s IP reuse platform joins Cadence Connections EDA Program

by Sowmyan RajagopalanPress Release

AMALIA IP reuse platform makes it easier for Cadence users to migrate, improve and optimize existing IP for new technologies and applications

Cologne, 11 October 2021 – Thalia Design Automation, an IP reuse company and expert in the development and deployment of automation solutions for analog and mixed-signal IP reuse, today announced it has joined the Cadence® Connections® EDA Program enabling Cadence customers to benefit from cost and time savings when using the Thalia AMALIA IP reuse platform to migrate to new technologies.

The Cadence Connections program encourages interoperability and open industry standards, collaborating with software suppliers worldwide to enhance the value in using Cadence products. Partners are chosen based on seamless product interoperability with Cadence solutions throughout the design flow.

Thalia’s AMALIA IP reuse platform comprises three key elements that align with Cadence workflow – the Circuit Porting capability, the Design Enabler and the Technology Analyzer.

The combination of the Thalia AMALIA platform and Cadence design solutions presents designers and system developers with a powerful combination of tools to make maximum use and reuse of their valuable analog IP.

AMALIA Circuit Porting improves the return on investment of an IP portfolio, enabling the designer to port designs with confidence of their suitability for new nodes or process technologies. Operating in the familiar Cadence Virtuoso® environment, Circuit Porting makes it possible to transfer even large, complex circuits quickly and easily, eliminating the typical complexities and pitfalls.

Also, part of the AMALIA IP Reuse Platform, Thalia Design Enabler software uses artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to save developers up to 50 percent more time and resources when centering designs after migrating from one technology to another. It quickly identifies the minimum set of devices needed to adjust the design the tool, reducing the number of changes required in layout while improving performance.

The AMALIA Technology Analyzer qualifies IP intended for the migration to a new technology. By comparing base and target technologies, Technology Analyzer enables Thalia IP Reuse platform users to not only select the best technology for the project, but to keep costs under tight control.

“Our platform meets the Cadence Connections program objectives and complements Cadence’s Intelligent System Design solutions and services. Together, we’re offering mutual customers a new methodology to facilitate IP reuse via advanced design migration techniques,” said Sowmyan Rajagopalan, Thalia Design Automation CEO.

Thalia announces new CEO and board structure to support continued growth

by PRPress Release

Cologne, Germany, 4th October 2021 – Following recent announcements on the further development of its AMALIA platform and its application to an expanding range of use cases, Thalia Design Automation, provider of analog and mixed-signal circuit IP reuse platform, today announced the appointment of a new CEO, alongside an extension of its Executive Board.

Founder and former Chief Technology Officer Sowmyan Rajagopalan takes the role of CEO with immediate effect.

The Thalia Board, led by executive chairman Rodger Sykes, has been expanded and an Advisory Board appointed to support and accelerate business growth. Advisory Board members include;

• Kavé Kianush, who has nearly three decades of experience in the industry, working with Philips Research Labs and Philips Semiconductors System Labs, and later as CTO and Vice President of Catena, an IC design-house based in the Netherlands.

• Guillaume d’Eyssautier, who has a career spanning the past 40 years in the semiconductor industry, including management positions in both Europe and the USA. Guillaume is on the board of several start-up companies in the micro-electronics and software domain, and most recently was CEO of DelfMEMS.

Sowmyan Rajagopalan, who founded Thalia in 2011, said that both the re-structure and the addition of an Advisory Board reflect Thalia’s continuing commitment to growth and its determination to further explore new channels and markets for its innovative IP reuse platform.

He commented: “I’m delighted to take on the role of CEO at what is already proving to be an exciting development phase for the business. Across the industry, Thalia is coming to be recognized as truly innovative and disruptive player in the IP reuse market. With the support of a strengthened Board, and our new Advisory Board, we’ve brought further depth and a great deal of fresh experience to the inform commercial strategy and accelerate growth.”

Executive Chairman Rodger Sykes comment: “These structural changes to the business are an indication of its ambition and growing presence in the marketplace. The past several years has been about technical innovation and working hard to meet and exceed the requirements of a growing client list. In the process, we’ve developed an outstanding technology platform and a world-class team of engineers. I am delighted that Sowmyan has agreed to bring his vision, drive and expertise to the role of CEO. I would also like to welcome our new Board members and look forward to working with them to forge the next phase of Thalia’s development.”

CEO Sowmyan Rajagopalan has nearly two decades of experience in the design and development of analog IP, IP strategy, analog EDA solutions and design methodologies. He has been awarded multiple patents in EDA, design and applications. He is responsible for business strategy and leads the company’s development of disruptive EDA solutions, algorithms and methodologies targeting analog migration, design variants and “IP on-demand”.

Thalia’s AMALIA IP re-use platform revolutionizes the reuse of analog and mixed signal integrated circuits – migrating, refining and optimizing existing IP for new applications and technologies. This enables IP houses and IC design companies to re-use and diversify product ranges quickly and cost effectively to meet evolving market demand and reach new markets.

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