Posedge: At the Cutting Edge of Connectivity IP Date:   Wednesday , January 30, 2013 Today the semiconductor market is in a consolidation phase. The industry is propagating towards growth at a competent curve every year with big players constantly advancing their market share. Owing to the high financial investments and the uncertainty associated with their success, the number of semiconductor start-ups is dwindling, as funding is becoming scarce. The Capex required for the same is skyrocketing to the tune of tens of millions of dollars due to smaller technology nodes and the platform level support needed for productizing the chips. This bodes well for the growth of the big players as they have deep pockets and diverse market presence. However, the tier-1 semiconductor companies are facing impediments to assimilate in-house expertise in building complex IP for newer segments and portfolios they like to address. Engaging this strong requirement for time to market and unique differentiating solutions, Santa Clara headquartered Posedge, is the newest player to answer the questions with regards to the quandaries faced in the semiconductor IP space. Posedge is addressing both the technology and the commercial aspects by providing very unique and innovative solutions in the semiconductor IP space. Providing System Level Differentiation The founders/Co-CEOs’ of Posedge, Chakra Parvathaneni & Venkat Kodavati, foresaw this dynamic shift in the semiconductor landscape six years back and incorporated an IP company with the vision of developing and providing complex and differentiated IPs around their core expertise in wired and wireless networking/security technologies. While a multitude of competitors provide Interface IP that are standards based but, non-differentiating IPs’, Posedge goes the extra mile by designing, developing and delivering complicated sub-system IP’s that meets high quality standards and helps clients by bringing differentiated end to end systems to the market. This semiconductor organization today stands as a seasoned player with over 800 man-years of experience in wired and wireless networking. Having worked on over 100 ASICs, the Posedge IP today is present in over 30 million devices. . In fact, the Wireless LAN 802.11 n / ac with MIMO configuration has proven to be a complete end to end solution from RF to Software including Baseband and MAC. Software Defined networking at the edge With the number of semiconductor design starts shrinking, design cycles becoming large, solutions are beseeched to be not only extremely differentiating but also future proof and amenable for value added upgrades. Expounding at these issues, the company’s product portfolio has been envisioned to incorporate the neo-technological advancements of Software defined networking at the edge. The provided wired and/or wireless IP gets integrated into the semiconductor SOC’s and large ASIC’s of systems or IC companies. Many large Tier-1 semiconductor companies today use Posedge’s IP solutions to enhance their respective product portfolios. Additionally, the network processors for mobile infrastructure, server network gear of the company are much sought after by the big players today. Achieving efficient data rates Posedge's Wire-Speed Switching and Routing Solutions are proven to be scalable and configurable for various applications, enabling network connectivity, switching and routing. By offloading the Packet Processing required for the network connectivity completely, the Host Processor is not burdened for L2/L3/L4 processing for Mobile Infrastructure Applications like Small Cell Base-stations, Outdoor WiFi Access Points etc. Amidst all of the solutions, one clear-cut ascendency in Posedge has been their unique customer engagement model in ensuring to take the solution from specification to certification. The company goes to the extent of working with customer’s clients to generate specification and product differentiating features. "For instance, every smart phone has Wi-Fi for connectivity. But the same is integrated into the APP processor only by one vendor today. Taking cue, Posedge has been enabling APP processor vendors to integrate Wi-Fi to not only save costs, but also to provide value-add features through customization,” says Kodavati. ‘ The IP product of the firm usually forms a significant portion of the customer ASIC owing to several features like 'Software Defined Networking', ‘Configurable Baseband’ etc. with performance guarantees. Driven to succeed The commitment to make a sizeable impact on all of the clients’ end products can be seen with its locations in four areas across the world. With back offices in Hyderabad, Bangalore, Taipei and Santa Clara, Posedge is a startup of a different kind with a stronger dedication to succeed as compared to the competitors and giants in its space. “The team is everything, we have multiple sites with their unique strengths and work synergistically across to address different challenges. We believe in having the best engineers for each of the domains and hence go to the location of the talent and we recruit and nurture talent from premier institutes,” says an elated Parvathaneni. For its employees, Posedge provides solitary stock options and ownership across the board akin to a Silicon Valley startup for India employees. Techniques and methodologies for cross training across sites, cross discipline, participating in standards, and exposure to customers ensure that the clients get the best out of an experienced and motivated team. With its driven workforce, Posedge has made a mark in high performance access points, SMB Gateways and base stations. Today Posedge continues on providing a “complete solution” path by addressing new markets. It is poised to make its presence felt in the deeply Embedded and Mobile Infrastructure verticals respectively. Going forward Posedge continues to strive towards a market dominating position in the WiFi-IP space to ultimately transform into a leader in connectivity IP.