In The Arena by TechArena - Lattice Semiconductor’s Munir Ahmad Talks OCP, AI Infra, & Power

Episode Date: July 14, 2026

Recorded live at the 2026 OCP EMEA Summit in Barcelona, Allyson Klein sits down with Munir Ahmad, Chief Architect at Lattice Semiconductor, to explore how programmable FPGA technology is helping data center operators adapt to the next generation of AI infrastructure.

Welcome to Tech Arena, featuring authentic discussions between tech's leading innovators and our host, Alison Klein. Now, let's step into the arena. Welcome in the arena. My name is Allison Klein. We are coming to you from OCP and Mia Summit in Barcelona, and I'm so glad to be here with Manir Ahmad, Chief Architect at Ladis Semiconductor. Welcome, Minir. How are you doing? Good. Thank you for having us in this show. Thank you. I'm really excited to be here. So, Meneer, this is the first time that Lattis has been on the show. So I just want to start with an introduction of who is Lattis in the value chain of technology integration? And what is your role as chief architect? Sure.

So Lidus semiconductor is a PGA vendor to provide a PGA, which is low-powered programmable devices. And our business is typically industry, sector, compute and data center side, as well as automotive and all those, right? And from LATIS perspective, we have been in the OCP community for several years. Right now, we are a platinum member at OCP. We are having involved in the data center design, DCSA, modular, hardware architecture. And APJ plays a very key role here because of OCP is taking a lot of effort to standardize few things, like IO connectivity, security, as well as a system management. And my role in a lattice as chief architect is that I basically look at a lot of the chief architect.

cover this complete side of the Latte's segmented business. And in the complete sector, obviously, OCP is a key contributor here, right? You know, OCP is driving the standardization. OCP is basically making sure that all the industry is coming together, right? And we play in contribution to OCP in the DCACM, DCM, DCMHs, Mojura, Plague, we significantly contribute there. We also see a CRM of the OCP. Now, when I think about lattice in the product portfolio that you have,

My natural inclination is to go more into an edge automotive. Tell me how these products fit within data center environments and what type of functions they're delivering towards data center and even AI workloads. So some of the key things that we see from the OCP side, if you look at, OCP is driving a lot of new spec, and a lot of the new spec means that you need some kind of programmable entity to incorporate this spec and some kind of programmable devices, right?

So we see that a lot in the OCP. And most of our devices in automotive section and industrial section is actually like that. It's a connectivity. It's a security as well as a control play and play, right? So we basically transferred this to the OCP side with some modification, obviously. But our key tenant products are still the same. It's still the same thing. We go across the industry wide for industrial automotive data center, client side.

So all the sectors with have a similar kind of products. Now, as chief architect, obviously, you're looking over what kind of design parameters you're delivering to each market. What is unique about the OCP space and how has Lattus addressed that? So it's a good point, right? So obviously, each industry has a different set of requirements, but the core decovers to the sale, right? If you look at the security requirement that we see from the industrial side, automotive side, I see OCP is pretty much, it's a similar kind of engagement that we see. So we have some modification that we needed to do in our product line.

And with the programmer devices, easy for us to do, right? We're not an ASIC vendor, but everything is hard-puted. Right. So we are programmable. We are easy to adopt, especially if you're new standards we see in the market, we can easily adopt that. And that helps us a lot. Okay.

Obviously, data center environments are changing rapidly with the advancement of AI, both from the standpoint of the hyperscalers and the neoclods that are building out AI infrastructure for everything from training to inference, but also the integration with an enterprise. How do you see the market responding to that and what role does Ladis have in terms of delivery of technology that's needed through this transformation? So we see AI in two ways, right? One is the data plan. And obviously Lattis doesn't play in the data plan, right? But we play in the control plan very heavily. And with the AI infrastructure, if you look at the control plane is changing significantly, right?

We used to have like a moralistic system architecture. Right now we have the disaggregated system architecture that actually plays pretty much all the AI that we see that's coming up in the data center side. So as we are adaptable, we can easily adapt to that architecture. But as I'm saying, we're playing in the control plane and the security plan, not the data plan today. Okay.

Okay. Obviously, OCP Summit Barcelona has just begun, but I know that you attended some events yesterday and obviously have started your discussions here in Barcelona. What do you think the key themes of the show are going to be? And what are you expecting from the community this week? I think the key thing that you're seeing is a power. I think everywhere we see that AI is a great. It's a great story to tell. But I think the limiting factor is still the power. So we're going to see a lot of innovations happening in the cooling, power generation, power delivery. I thought efficiency a lot. Obviously, AI story is still going to be there, but today people measure the data center in terms of power, right? So I think that's the story that we're going to see coming out from the OCP.

When you think about that, what is Lattis's role within that particular realm of innovation? I think from our side, I would tell management is the key one, right, controlling the power, providing a control mechanism to the AI infrastructure, some kind of real-time mechanism in Koeing. Because if you look at today, the system management is not a real-time system management. It is still based on the system-based system, processing, everything is done in the operating system-based, right? And when you see these power responses, some of them is very transient power response. So we need to have a real-time control mechanism, and that's what I think, a PTA, because we do have a nanosecond response time.

Right? So we're not depending on the operating system. It's a real-time control. For us, I think that's what we'll see that APD is coming more and more important in that AI infrastructure. Okay. 2026 is a big pivot point in terms of a broad adoption of AI expected and enterprise. What do you think the trajectory of technology is over the next couple of years, and what do you think we're going to be talking about in a couple of years

in terms of the evolution of the key challenges? I think all I think this is pretty much, if you look at today, It used to be like CPU, memory, storage, right? And now we have so many different elements in coming to the play. You have GPU, Xcelaductose, TPU, some kind of matrix calculation, and all those heterogeneous architecture we're seeing, even if you look at the CPU thing, right, we have multiple CPU vendors today that are coming to the play,

and each one has a different architecture, right? Chip-led architecture is coming. So I think the system management is a key thing, right? and obviously compete is going to grow as it is. But system management is still running so I could be high, that whole AI infrastructure that I see, we're still trying to solve the system management problem based on the way we still is the oldest, right?

So I think that's what I like to see that coming in the future to have a strategy of system management where we have all kind of heterogeneous architecture can be part of it. Benir, thank you so much for the time today. this has been an awesome interview. I only have one more question for you, which is for our viewers who are listening to the conversation,

where would you send them for more information about Lattis and to connect with you if they want to continue the dialogue? Sure, I think the Lattis Semiconductor, we have a good website, Lidicemiconductor.com, and that would be probably a good place to start.

I'm sure they have some contact as information, but feel free to join a link up to me. My name is Mune Ramal. You can find me in LinkedIn, as well as it's my first name dot lastime at Gladysm.com.

And I'll be happy to answer any question that you may have about lighten semiconductor. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being on the show today and have a fantastic OCP summit. Thank you all. Thank you. Thanks for joining Tech Arena. Subscribe and engage at our website, Techorena.a.

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