Firm also in talks to supply 5nm SoC to global brand
South Korean chip design company Coasia, a partner to Samsung Foundry, has supplied a sample of SoC to a cigarette company that plans to apply it to its e-cigarette, the company said on Tuesday.
Once the sample is approved by the customer, the SoC will go into mass production, a senior executive of the company said.
It will be Coasia’s biggest win in the semiconductor sector since it entered the market two and a half years ago.
The South Korean fabless company was also promoting its samples to two overseas tobacco firms, Coasia senior vice president Cho Kye-young said.
Coasia was also in talks with another company on supplying its SoC, the executive said, which will use a 5-nanometer (nm) process if it wins the deal.
The SoC delivered to the South Korean tobacco firm was done in a turn-key fashion where Coasia designed, oversaw foundry, packaging and delivery.
Coasia started off as a distributor for IT products and expanded into LED, camera modules, audio components and system semiconductor design.
It founded subsidiary Coasia Semi in 2019 to expand its semiconductor design business. It acquired Coasia Nexell to further strengthen the business.
Coasia Semi is registered as Samsung Foundry’s Design Solution Partner; Coasia Nexell designed Samsung’s Exynos brand of SoCs.
Coasia’s Cho said most chip design houses only design parts of its customer’s chip but Coasia can handle all steps of design and can distribute the chips as well in turn-key fashion, which puts its ahead of its competitors.
E-cigarette requires a microcontroller unit, a power management IC and a charger chip. Coasia developed a one-chip solution that encompasses all three chips, Cho said.
This reduces the cost and size of the SoC by 40% and 50%, respectively, he said.
The recent sample SoC provided to the South Korean tobacco firm will use Samsung’s 130nm for production.
