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Looking for Design Partners for Optical Communication Chips

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xlai

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Dear Friend,

I am an analog/RF design engineer and was working in world’s well-known IP companies with >8 years industrial experiences and an academic Ph.D.

I am interested in developing optical communication system chips for a possible start-up project. The chips could include Laser Drivers(BiCMOS), TIAs(BiCMOS) and SerDeses(CMOS). The SerDes chip could consists of VGAs, Equalizers, ADCs and PLLs. I am also familiar with setting up CADs and PDKs for simulation and verification environments.

I am located in Ottawa, Canada. If you are also interested in such a start-up project, please email me.

Regards,
Your Friend
 

Some advice for you from a "startup veteran" (been
through 2 semiconductor IPOs and now run my own
business)...

1) Who's your customer? Startups without customers
are called "hobbies". Are your customers teaching you
anything and are they designing you in, in parallel? Or
just humoring you while waiting to see whether you
succeed (by which time they probably will have
designed in somebody else)?

2) Is your customer serious about sticking with you,
over the distance? Everyone pets the puppy, but
very few undertake to feed it or pay the vet bill.

3) Do you intend to put these products, or
IP-as-product, out toward what looks to be a
very high speed application, against a large pool
of entrenched competition most of whom have
a large head start? I'm seeing multi-GBPS per
lane as the new normal, it's way past my test
capability and uses foundries I have no experience
with, and you live and die by models and tools
(both of which a self funded startup cannot
afford).

4) Speaking of tools, most foundries insist on
tape-in from unaffordable (to the individual) tools
like Caliber and either Cadence or Synopsis*Mentor.
How do you intend to cover that?

5) Who's your competition (see 3) and how far ahead
of you are they in terms of both IP / product development,
and at sewing up the best customers, opportunities?

6) The chips / chip elements described are described
pretty generically. Do you yourself know the needs and
standards in play, such that you can define a winner
product? I would say that in the optical comms space
the past is worth nothing and the future is a spin of
the fortune wheel. And in my fairly lengthy experience
"pushing" a product is like pushing on a rope, you need
to find the "pull" that will drag you through all of the
product development underbrush without losing your
way or just getting entangled.

These are thought questions for you to answer yourself.
We don't need to know, but you sure do.
 
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