BlackPepper Technologies: The Go-To Provider for Complex High-end Turnkey Semiconductor Chip Designs Date:   Thursday , December 29, 2016 Though India is enriched with several mammoth software organizations, 98.8 percent of our electronic components are being imported from abroad, as most of India\'s hardware firms act simply as augmenting service warehouses, especially when complex semiconductor processes are involved. In fact, every semiconductor company can only afford a very few senior professionals and a bunch of juniors, as there is barely a talent pool of 25,000 all over India. Noting that it requires many skilled seasoned professionals with hands-on experience to handle complex designs when a customer seeks high-end technology services, there are only a handful of vendors who can deliver a turnkey solution. BlackPepper Technologies stands out even amongst these select few vendors with its unique capability of delivering turnkey solutions with the highest amount of predictability and delivery quality in the shortest turnaround time; owing to its unique employee ownership model, which has bestowed it with the top ten percent of the talent available in the semiconductor industry. While most hardware-oriented consulting firms are being acquired by software behemoths, BlackPepper stands apart by getting even more deeply entrenched into the semiconductor space. \"We are flattered at the attention that we - as an acquisition target - constantly receive from these major players; however we would like to reiterate that we are, quite simply, not for sale. This gives our customer base the confidence that BlackPepper\'s proven excellence in its chosen focus areas is not going to be diluted by an acquisition by larger software oriented companies. It also gives us the mindspace to execute our carefully charted long-term plans with precision and freedom. Our stated plan of record is to go IPO,\" asserts Sujeeth Joseph, CTO, BlackPepper, who was Director of Architecture for SanDisk\'s Removable Products Group and was Chief Architect of Wipro\'s Semiconductor BU. The Go-to-provider Having assembled a top class engineering team from the OEM and ODM spaces with abundant experience in executing SOCs, BlackPepper has emerged as the go-to provider for handling & implementing complex SOCs that are critical in terms of meeting power, performance and area targets, typically in IoT, automotive, wireless & healthcare domains. It is one of the very few houses in India that is capable of accomplishing a \'true\' concept-to-end product offering which integrates everything from algorithms and ASIC/silicon implementation to high volume production including industrial design under one roof. This explains BlackPepper\'s impressive client list which comprises of eight out of ten top semiconductor organizations. \"EYWA, our home-grown technology framework, simply removes sub optimality from the design process. This is what plagues the design process in many of our competitors. EYWA is a unique combination of various technology components that consolidate principles of network protocols, human capability mapping and physical resource modelling into one single integrated platform. This brings forth a product (be it hardware, software, silicon or an actual end product) with higher quality,lower cost and gets realised predictably on time,\" explains Manoj Sundareswaran, Executive VP, BlackPepper, who was a key contributor in Infineon India\'s Engineering division. The Quiet-No-Nonsense-Company Determined to fill the void in the Indian hardware ecosystem by establishing a robust end-to-end system and semiconductor based product design service house, Hari Krishnan Puravankara (CEO) established BlackPepper in 2011 in Bangalore. Incepting BlackPepper being his life\'s ultimate goal, Hari had been constantly upgrading and aligning every single move towards that objective for over a decade. After strengthening its foundation with a stellar team, the company hit the first ball to the boundary by successfully designing a complex SOC that integrated a subset of 40 odd major engineering components and it later evolved into a systems capable organization. Today, boasting of an impressive average employee experience of 6.5 years, the company addresses the industry\'s biggest ARM (Acquire, Retain & Motivate) nightmare with its Lean Tall Engineering (LTE) talent transformation framework, which helps BlackPepper to transform an ordinary design engineer to an architect level.\"Our LTE framework allows two of our engineers to (say), design a semiconductor block far better and quicker, which typically takes five engineers in other companies,\" explains Jei Narayanan, COO, BlackPepper and the ex-delivery head of Wipro and ex-Semiconductor Practice head of TCS. Besides offering a wonderful compensation package and inculcating a vibrant culture, the company keeps its 150+ people motivated by providing them niche high-end critical projects; thereby converting yet another challenge into an opportunity. The organization\'s talent philosophy revolves around culturing high performance through goal alignment, accountability and frequent career discussions and effective coaching. Abbreviating FAIL as First Attempt In Learning, BlackPepper encourages taking risks, provided they don\'t repeat the same mistakes again.Every LTE team member has Customer Centricity, Effective communication, Learnability and Leadership (CELL) embedded in their cells. BlackPepper is visibly proud of its reputation as a quiet \'No nonsense company\' in the industry. BlackPepper ensures that every Pepperite is a very capable engineer by profession and a good human being by nature. Democratizing Innovation While deepening its roots in India, BlackPepper has extended its branches to Taiwan, China & Singapore and currently is in the process of establishing a design center in the U.S. Ambitious to democratize innovation, the company has launched Pepper Council, a forum that provides a platform for any individual around the world to submit their ideas materialize and monetize that particular idea via BlackPepper, highlights Basavaraj, EVP - Strategy & Marketing. Utilizing this forum, BlackPeppper wishes to be recognized as the innovation marketplace for the country, while maintaining its position as the go-to design consulting & services choice for all semiconductor & system companies. The company anticipates becoming a 250 member strong top class semiconductor technology company by the end of FY 2016. Judging by the passion of its management and engineering teams, the day doesn\'t seem far when BlackPepper will be a very successful hardware IPO out of India Key Management: Hari Krishnan Puravankara, Founder & CEO Hari founded BlackPepper Technologies with the passion to democratize innovation by transforming ideas into tangible products and inculcate the spirit of innovation among all BlackPepper is a trusted design partner for Tier-1 to Tier-3 semiconductor companies, and works in all phases of the silicon realisation flow Offices: Bangalore, Taiwan, China & Singapore