Album Semiconductors, a growing design services company, headquartered in Bangalore, has been successfully delivering semiconductor services and supports in domains like Memories, Std. Cells, IO, Analog, RTL Design, Physical Implementation, Design Verification, DFT, and more under the leadership of Dr. Sudhir S. Moharir and Mr. Vasudev N. C., the founders of the company.
Both the founders, being vastly experienced in working with cutting edge memory technologies, help Album to be sought-out partner for complete IC designs. Moreover, “Memories are in their DNA.” Their experts analyze the need of the customer and design customized solutions to achieve competitive cost, quick time to market with high quality. Depending on the customer needs, Album also has multiple delivery models, including onshore, nearshore & offshore, to engage with them globally. This is reflected in their growing clientele including the top tier fabless semiconductor companies.
Vision: Album Semiconductors is working with a vision to contribute significantly to the semiconductor design industry.
Core Values: Customer Satisfaction, Excellence, Innovation, Integrity, Quality, Teamwork, Work-Life Balance.
Mission: Making customers successful by accelerating their memories, SOC designs, and IPs while minimizing their costs and risks.
THE FLAG BEARERS
Sudhir Moharir
Album Semiconductors is flourishing under the excellent guidance of Sudhir Moharir. He holds over 25 years of amazing experience and worked in Tier 1 companies like ARM, Artisan, Synopsys, Cypress, and ST. Sudhir has the expertise in leading all stages of design development efforts like requirement definition, architecture, design, supervising, test support, silicon correlation, and failure analysis. In academics, Sudhir is armed with PhD degree in Microelectronics from IIT Bombay.
Vasudev Nese Chaya
An alumnus of IIT Bombay, Vasudev is the other founding member of Album Semiconductors. He has been in the industry for more than 15 years and worked at ST, Intel Technology, Emerging Memory Technology, Texas Instruments, and ARM.
SERVICE PORTFOLIO
With deep domain expertise and experience working on advanced technology nodes, Album is working with 10+ Tier 1 direct clients and providing the following spectrum of services:
- Memory Design and Layout (SRAM, ROM, MRAM, etc)
- Physical Implementation (PD, STA, etc.)
- Design for Testability (ATPG, Scan Insertion, PSV)
- RTL Design and Verification (IP & SoC)
- STD Cells & Analog Design and Layout
DIFFERENTIATING FACTORS
Here is the list of major factors that make Album Semiconductors stand out in the market:
- Album is delivering the services from specifications to silicon.
- They are ramping up very fast to deliver onsite or offshore.
- The expert team analyzes people’s requirements and sets out the possible solutions that will best suit the successful delivery of their project. All these things put together help to derive the necessary outcome for their clients.
THE SHIFTING MARKET TRENDS AND ALBUM
The semiconductor industry is always going to grow in the long term. It is known to show cyclical behaviour due to various reasons, many of them well known by now. The domain expertise and access to EDA tools in the house have enabled the Album team to successfully deliver several multi-million gate memory designs in advanced technology nodes. They are keeping up with the upcoming technologies and have a great talent pool working onsite, offshore with foundries and industry- leading teams that keep themselves abreast of the latest trends.
Infrastructure and talent have always been the major challenges for any growing organization. Sudhir and his team have been growing the in-house capabilities, building the necessary infrastructure and offering solutions to customers at competitive pricing and on their timelines. They have also invested heavily in training talent pool with the latest tools. They participate in conferences on the latest technologies and trends. All this gives them a unique capability to support clients develop products and to support them in the ODC model as well. They are also acquiring niche talent and building end-to-end expertise in IC design.
CONTRIBUTING FACTORS BEHIND THE COMPANY’S SUCCESS
Album team has been working as a family, everyone equally contributing to the success, whether it is seniors driving the projects/outcomes or juniors contributing in execution & training of new trainees, etc. they all have helped to achieve the milestones. Besides, here is a list of major factors that led the company on the success path:
- Professionally managed and building good employee culture.
- Strong industry experience and deep domain know-how.
- Well connected to the industry leaders and working with multiple Tier-1 client.
- Very low attrition and providing high growth positions to engineers.
Workplace recognition and revenue growth are not coincidental but it is a reflection of one’s belief that treating employees well is a great business. It has become a key factor of innovation at Album Semiconductors India. Their focus has shifted from a monetary viewpoint to the complete engagement of the employees.
With such huge investments being made on the employees, retaining them is one of the top priorities for HR. Thus, they have various initiatives to not only retain them but to keep them motivated at all the touchpoints possible.
LONG TERM CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP
Quality, Cost and Time to Market are major driving forces behind the successful venture in the semiconductor industry and they have been a guiding principle for the Album team also for their long term customer satisfaction strategy.
“We have been focused on delivering to our clients tailor-made solutions which can deliver quality results, can keep their costs low and meet their timelines. If required, we have invested from our end extra man efforts to make sure that the customer feels delighted”, Sudhir recollects.
“We could increase the number of clients and the business with our commitment to delivery. Happy customers give positive referrals which in-turn help to gain more business. Moving forward, we intend to provide dedicated Program Managers to our customers to keep the project execution more smooth”, he further adds.
FEATHERS IN THE CAP
Album Semiconductors has been recently awarded as “10 Most Promising Semiconductor Companies –
2019” by Silicon India.
It is recognized globally by CV-Magazine, UK and has been honored with an award for: “Best Memory Design Specialists – India, Distinction Award for Physical Implementation Services 2019”.
FUTURE OF ALBUM
2018-19 has been an amazing year for ALBUM. Company’s YOY revenue has grown multi-fold and so has their team strength. In 2019-20, they wish to continue their momentum and at least double their revenues while focusing on doubling their headcount too and get more ODC projects this year.
Sudhir further adds, “Our future plan is to develop our global footprint and expertise to have executed projects across the globe with projects in India, US, UK, Malaysia, Israel, and Taiwan. The clientele of the company should span from Fortune 500 companies to start-ups”.
