In The Arena by TechArena - Flexibility at the Edge: Pragmatic Semiconductor’s Bold Approach

Episode Date: February 24, 2025

In this podcast, Pragmatic Semi CEO David Moore shares how flexible, sustainable ICs are unlocking new edge AI and IoT applications—powered by a low-carbon, high-volume fab model.

Welcome to the Tech Arena featuring authentic discussions between tech's leading innovators and our host, Allison Klein. Now let's step into the arena. Welcome in the arena. My name is Alison Klein. Today we have a really exciting interview. I am so delighted that Dave Moore, CEO of Pragmatic Semi, is here with me. Dave, it's been a long time since we talked.

How are you doing and welcome to the show. Thank you, Alison. Such a pleasure. Great to speak to you again. It's been too long. It's been too long. Yeah, it's been fantastic. Great to speak to you again. It's been too long. It's been too long. Yeah, it's been fantastic. I'm speaking to you from London today.

We moved the family, I think, as lock, stock and borrow from the Bay Area about two years ago to Cambridge, where Pragmatic is headquartered. That's amazing. You've had an incredible journey in semiconductors, and I've known you at different stops along the way, but you've worked at some of the giants in this space. Introduce us to Pragmatic Semi and give us a flavor of why you chose this as your next career stop in an incredible journey of work in driving processor innovation.

Yeah, no, I'd be glad to. I mean, well, first and foremost, I'd be very fortunate. I had such great opportunities, obviously almost 25 years, give or take in the Bay area. Started a career at Altera, then spent six great years at Intel where we first intercepted each other, let's say, and then at Micron as Chief Strategy Officer. And yes, pragmatic is something that is very different. It's very disruptive. What attracted me to it really was, I I think just the level of innovation in the technology and the uniqueness and the disruptive nature of the technology.

The opportunity for it. So obviously there's a ton of demand out there, obviously fueled by AI and other forces, but there's also deep demands to reduce carbon emissions. We can talk about that later. Demands for a diversified supply chain. I think the market really is crying out for alternatives and we like to say, we look at some of our target markets for the technology. If we're going to realize the potential of an AI enabled IoT at the edge, we're going

to have to be pragmatic about how we do it. And so that's on an economical level, an environment level. And then of course, last but not least, great people, great talents. The company's been on an amazing journey. It was founded in 2010. And so it's been on an amazing journey of innovation on the technology level, the manufacturing level. Now it really is poised for scale up and ramping production.

And just felt like a really exciting time to join the company and help shepherd on its next exciting chapter. Well, Cambridge, of course, a great tech hub for the industry and obviously a lot of talent in that local market to fuel a company like Pragmatic. One of the things that I wanted to just start the conversation with to ground folks who haven't heard about you is the solution portfolio that you're pursuing and exactly what you're trying to deliver to the market because it is quite disruptive?

Yeah, it is. What we're doing really at foundational levels, we're bringing together thin film technology, which we might have in display and other areas traditionally, but bringing that together with state-of-the-art 300 millimeter, 12 inch semiconductor manufacturing. And that's been done really for the first time. And so what that enables us to do is to provide ultra thin, flexible, low cost chips with an extremely low carbon footprint. And that enables us to embed them in just about everything from smart packaging

applications to wearables, to medical applications for tests and diagnosis, consumer applications like AR, VR glasses, there's a whole host of applications that are really exciting based on the form factor, cost, and that low carbon footprint. I think what's really different as well about what we're doing is our manufacturing. So we're headquartered in Cambridge, but our manufacturing is actually up in the Northeast in Durham, where we're ramping the UK's first ever 300 millimeter wafer fab. And each of those fabs is going to be capable of producing billions of these flex ICs per year. We did close our series D, first full series D funding at the end of 23. That was the largest ever venture

capital raise for semiconductors in Europe ever. And so that funding is enabling us to advance our technology, expand our capacity and really be able to take advantage of some of that really unique disruption. The fact is that we're just inherently more sustainable, right? In terms of how we make technology, how we manufacture, we use less water allison, we use less energy, significantly lower chemicals. And that allows us to deliver chips with an order of magnitude, lower carbon footprint, and I'm sure you know, if you think about putting chips into billions

and hundreds of billions and even trillions of smart items across the far edge, you're going to run into that challenge of adding carbon footprint at that kind of scale and so being able to deliver a sustainable offering that has a unique form factor, has the right economics and the sustainability to deliver to that in volume is really what the company's all about. I wanna dig into the sustainability further, but before we do that, you described some of the use cases.

One of the things that I wanted to talk to you about is edge computing, because you've described some of the areas that I wanted to talk to you about is edge computing, because you've described some of the areas that this is going to go into. But are these areas that are utilizing computing today or these new applications that are getting opened up because pragmatic ICs are available? How do you see that and how has the market response been to hearing about what's coming to market? Yeah, absolutely. I don't think it's a combination of both. There's some applications where we're really going in with a really compelling value proposition where silicon might be employed today,

right? And so that would be areas such as radio frequency identification, NFC, where you're embedding identification, sensing capabilities into physical objects and doing that at scale. And that's where the form factor and the sustainability really come into play. There are other applications too at the kind of what you'd probably call in our, let's say former world, the far, far edge, really where you're talking about consumer electronics. I think AR, VR glasses is always an easy one for people to picture. You've got this really thin, like ultra thin 30 microns thick chip, and it

can be in all kinds of form factors. Picture a long thin interposer, for example, that fits into an AR, VR glasses constrained form factor. So you've got very little space. You've got to be able to bend and flex into the available area, integrate, not just routing, but also active circuitry as well. That really unlocks a lot of new opportunities that just pretty much

impossible for silicon to address. And then beyond that, we have a lot of applications where the ability to provide custom ICs at a really, really rapid production cycle. So we go from raw materials and our fabs to finished wafers out in just 48 hours. And so that enables us to quickly service agile needs. And you know yourself in the broader silicon industry, you want a custom chip, it's okay. It has to be hundreds of millions of units

and it will take about a year maybe to go end to end. We can offer a much faster design to waver out cycle for our customers that allows them to innovate and customize the technology. So there's a combination I think of where we're competing with kind of incumbent silicon solutions with our form factor, our sustainability credentials, and the ability to have customers to innovate quickly, to provide custom designs for new applications. And then there's an area where we just are unique in terms of form factor,

where silicon wouldn't be feasible to play today. Dave, I got to admit, when I heard about this, I've lived in the semiconductor world for a really long time. The fact that these things then, I guess my question for you, not to get too geeky, is how are you controlling the laws of physics to ensure that those ICs can bend and flex and still compute? Yeah, I think obviously it's different to silicon in many ways, but the manufacturing processes in some ways are quite similar. So we're using a lot of the same tooling you

would see in a silicon file, let's say. But what we're doing is we're processing that with very different materials, again, ultra thin. So our end wafers might be 30 microns thick, but some of the layers that we're depositing and processing are in the 10 nanometer kind of range. So very, very, I'd say, unique in terms of the materials and the processing. We like to say we're simplifying semiconductors in terms of bringing a much more cost-effective, sustainable approach to these solutions to Allison, but that doesn't mean it's easy, right? And so the nature of that kind of thin film deposition patterning etching ends up with an implemented analog digital circuit capability that can service applications in a way that thin film deposition patterning etching ends up with an implemented analog digital circuit

capability that can service applications in a way that thin film technologies hasn't been able to date. And that's what ends up giving us this flexibility of form factor that allows us to access so many of those exciting disruptive applications. Now, let's unpack the sustainability a little bit. We know that the silicon manufacturing process comes with a lot of different chemicals integrated into those silicon that make it very difficult to have a circular economy solution, if you will, at the end of life. How have you approached this and what do you think customers should know as they're looking at things like EU

regulations and different sustainability commitments inside their companies about these solutions and how they're different? I think there's two lenses through which we look. First is our inherently lower carbon footprint. And so because we're using less water, less energy, less harmful chemicals, when you compare a like for like solution, let's say, you'll see an order of magnitude lower carbon footprint. And like I said, for applications where you're picturing putting this into track and trace applications for supply chain visibility,

e-regulations supporting digital product passports that require the ability for consumers to engage, it's really important that you're adding that capability, that intelligence, and not significantly adding to the carbon footprint of the packaging or the labels in the process. So that's one of the fundamental differentiators. I think the other element though too, is that if you look at a lot of the most exciting

applications, they're really geared around reducing emissions, right? And so we can go into applications in smart packaging where we're going to improve reuse and recycling outcomes in the food packaging industry, reducing waste, right? 30% of all food is wasted. It contributes 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions. So being able to have that lever on improving the reuse and

recyclability of packaging, reducing waste of the apparel industry, the food industry. These are actually some of the biggest levers. And yes, you can employ silicon in some of these applications, but it proves that there's some constraints in terms of service to the application, the right cost. There may also be supply chain challenges in the future as we build out all of these solutions across hundreds of billions of items. That kind of volume we've all seen seen the kind of supply chain challenges,

let's say in the Silicon industry, our customers, our investors, they really feel like something different is needed here to really bring that sustainability step function through. And to do that at a lower carbon footprint too, is really a double warming. That's amazing. One of the things that we've talked about in our history together a lot is this supply chain resilience. And I think everybody that lived through the pandemic understands the

challenges around supply chain and semiconductors. How do you see localized manufacturing in Durham and your ability to deliver silicon at a rate that is disruptive, helping with supply chain resilience for your customers? First and foremost, I think you look at it as you well know, 70% of semiconductor manufacturing is in just three countries, right? So between Taiwan, Korea, and China, for example. And so there's a deep demand for diversifying the semiconductor manufacturing footprint

globally. We've seen the CHIPS Act in the US that we just work on together. There's also the EU CHIPS Act, Japan obviously investing. So worldwide people are recognizing that rebalance of the supply chain in terms of semiconductor manufacturing is really important. And so the opportunity to offer up the UK and have the UK play a role in that global supply chain is something that we're very proud of. We think it's really important to really strategic as well.

The second element of this though, is that, and it's another unique element of our manufacturing. I'm sure you, many of your listeners, well used to seeing fabs and the scale of the right is silicon fab. Even a reasonably mature node is going to have a massive footprint. It typically costs hundreds of millions, billions to bring to life. Our manufacturing is really unique in that, yes, we have those fast production cycles, but each of our fabs is just 600 square meters.

So it's 20 meters by 30 meters, but still capable of producing billions of flexible ICs per year. So what that enables us to do is build up our capacity in the UK and offer that diversification of the global stage, but it also allows us to bring that capacity to our customers. So we've got a lot of customers who are excited about the potential for us operating a fab as a service on site with them, right? Providing them secure access to supply, but also then being able to do that in an economically viable way.

Something that I think lots of customers in the past, government and commercial have been very keen to be able to do, but obviously something that is challenging when the capital investment is so high and the resource demands for silicon semi-concept processing are so high, you're left constrained where you can build that capacity. And we're able to unlock that a bit in a way that's really disruptive. I am going to start thinking about fab as a service all day now, Dave. That's fascinating. And I want to pack that further, but one question that I have for

you is performance and capability. When you look at the solutions that you're delivering to market, you've described the great use cases for the technology. Longer term, do you see an opportunity to scale performance with this solution or are the constraints of the manufacturing process limiting you to that far edge? Another great question. I would say that we have a lot of runway in terms of our technology roadmap. That big series D investment was certainly to expand capacity in terms of manufacturing, but it's also to continue to advance the technology. We're able to offer generation on generation significant 2X to 10X, sometimes power

improvements, generation on generation, we'll see performance improvements, new capabilities coming through. I think ultimately the technology has an expanding opportunity for it as we improve the performance, reduce the power, increase the density. We recently demonstrated, it was reported in Nature actually, a RISC-V implementation on the technology. We were able to show it like doing Hello World, rolled around a pen, which is something obviously that any other technology would struggle with. And I think it was just a really good proof point, Allison, of what the technology could

even do today. I think as we drive the roadmap and bring through higher levels of performance, reduce power or density, we'll just continue to expand that opportunity for it. But near term, tons of exciting opportunity for us. I think critically though, too, you know, our goal isn't to do what silicon does. Right. I spent 20 odd years of my life in silicon. It's an amazing industry and it's an amazing technology, but I think there's

roles for other technologies to compliment silicon where it makes sense. And so you won't see this flex I see technology as the basis for a GPU and a data center anytime soon, but there are a ton of applications where the performance and power today and where we can bring it opens up opportunities from going beyond RFID and sensing applications to low-end controllers. We even have very highly optimized inferencing classifiers that we have in the technology.

So you really have a broad application space that you can service, but we don't want to lose sight either of the advantages and the uniqueness, right? So we want to make sure we maintain our flexibility. We want to maintain the right levels of cost to access those applications at scale. And then critically, we do not want to be taking a step back from our overall sustainability and that carbon footprint differentiator, which I think is just so important as we move forward in the industry. That's awesome.

I can't wait to hear stories about customers really delivering new capabilities to their businesses based on pragmatic solutions. But let's take a look closer in what's coming in 2025 and what are you most excited about in the market today? So I think fundamentally, you know, we're ramping our fabs. So our first 300 millimeter high volume production fab is ramping to production now and we're seeing yields coming on that. Then we have our second one coming online mid year.

And so by the end of the year, we will be by so margin, the largest volume manufacturer in the UK. And that will give us capacity for billions of chips. And so on that we're launching our Gen 3 technology platforms. That's going to deliver significant Gen on Gen power reduction. It also comes in a standard PDK and EDA integration for like kind of industry standard foundry offerings. And on top of that platform, we are also going to be delivering products.

And so our first NFC product of an NFC portfolio, that's near field communication. We'll be bringing a disruptive solution to enable brands in new levels of consumer engagement, product authentication, track and trace and beyond. I think what we're most excited about really is delivering to our customers and innovation platform, right? We're all about bridging that physical and digital world, but doing it sustainably and enabling that innovation of our customers. And 2025 is a big year for the company as we really take that investment from our Series D and

translate that against just the amazing customer demand and excitement we have with the technology. That's so great. Final question for you. Where can folks find out more about what you're delivering to the market and engage with the Pragmatic team? I guess these days LinkedIn is a great place. So if listeners want to look for a Pragmatic Semiconductor and follow us there, follow me, we're quite active there making everyone's day with new news as we move forward on an exciting journey.

Of course, our website too, PragmaticSmi.com as well, great place to see more information and we'll get a lot more as we roll through the year there. But we're really excited about the opportunity we have in terms of our expanding customer set, expanding application set, and really bringing this long journey of innovation to its first real exciting stage in terms of at scale commercial deployment. So it's a really exciting time for the company, a really exciting time for me myself. Awesome. It's great to see you in the CEO seat. I can't wait to see what you and the team deliver this year and we will be following along on Tech Arena for sure. Thanks so much for being on the program. It was my

pleasure, Allison. So great to speak to you again. All the best. Thanks for joining the Tech Arena. Subscribe and engage at our website, thetecharena.net. All content is copyrighted by the Tech Arena.