Semiconductors have been the talk of the town for the past two years, have you heard of a new type of chip called chiplets?

Think of it this way. According to IBM Research, computer chips today are made using a technique called systems on a chip or SOC, where multiple computer functions such as general processing, data storage are put into a single chip. 

While this way of building chips has worked well in the past, every chip comes with multiple functions, some of which that the customer may or may not need. 

This means that it is not efficient to use such chips for high performance tasks such as AI computing or big data processing.

So what the chiplet technology does is to break apart the system into its composite function parts. These individual parts are called chiplets. 

Chiplets could be mixed and matched on a module to then create chips with more efficient and specific functions, just like Lego blocks. They are in fact increasingly adopted by big tech firms such as Apple and AMD.

But why are we talking so much about chiplets today? Well, that’s because our guest is startup venture Silicon Box, which focuses on the semiconductor design of chiplets. 

Started in 2021 by the founders of NASDAQ-listed chipmaker Marvell, the firm raised US$200 million in a Series B round this year. The firm said its valuation surpassed the US$1 billion mark, making it a unicorn less than three years after founding. 

But how does the firm assess its valuation numbers and what are the key drivers of growth in the chiplets space? 

Meanwhile, SiliconBox opened a US$2 billion facility in Tampines in July last year but what is the role of Singapore in its wider portfolio?

On Under the Radar, The Evening Runway’s finance presenter Chua Tian Tian posed these questions to Mike Han, Head of Business, Silicon Box.