SemiWiki.com - Podcast EP356: An Oveview of the Unique Skills and Broad Impact of Alphacore with Andrew Levy

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

Daniel is joined by Andrew Levy, Vice President of Business Development, IP & ASIC at Alphacore. Andrew leads strategic growth initiatives, customer engagement, technology commercialization, and business development activities for the company’s semiconductor IP, ASIC design services, and advanced microelectronics… Read More

Hello, my name is Daniel Nenny, founder of SemaiWiki, the Open Forum for Semiconductor Professionals. Welcome to the Semiconductor Insiders podcast series. My guest today is Andrew Levy, Vice President of Business Development, IP, and ASIC at AlphaCorps. Andrew leads strategic growth initiatives, customer engagement, technology commercialization, and business development activities for the company's semiconductor IP, ASIC design services, and advanced microelectronics solutions. Andrew brings more than two decades of experience spanning semiconductor business development, marketing, program management, and technology commercialization. Welcome to the podcast, Andrew. Thanks, Stan. Nice to talk with you again.

And thanks for the opportunity to share some of AlphaCorps story with you and your readers. Yeah. So let's get started. First, let me ask, what brought you to AlphaCorps? Well, I first met Escomigolo, AlphaCore's first. founder and CEO about 15 years ago. We worked together at a company, and a little bit after that, he actually left to found Alpha Corps, but we kept in touch. And as time went by, I learned a little bit more about Alpha Corps and learned about the really exciting things that Alpha Corps was pursuing.

and he expressed interest in having me joined the company, and I expressed interest in joining the company, and 10 years ago, I joined Alpha Corps. So according to AlphaCorps website, it features analog and mixed signal IP with some impressive specifications. In addition to those Silicon Verified IPs, you're also offering turnkey ASIC services. So how does this differentiate AlphaCorps from, say, other companies in this sector?

Well, yeah, that's an interesting question for us. We initially started out focusing on IP pretty much alone. That was how we were building the company and providing analog McSignal RF design blocks to others for their A6 and SOCs. of Cs. That business has grown for us, and over time, customers began asking us if we could develop the entire chip for them, especially since the IP that we were providing was really the core element in many of the chips that we were helping our customers with. Since we were already engaged with various foundries in doing test chips for our IP. We already had those relationships with the foundries, and so this became a natural extension of what we were doing

at the time, and that's how we really got into the ASIC products and as basics and SOCs. We've been working with many companies that are focused on very advanced products. And as I said, our IP really forms the most critical element of those things. But since then, since we started providing this IP, we have seen that companies like telecommunication companies and base, you know, satellite providers, that sort of company, they see the value in us integrating the entire ASIC for them. We've also been working. We have a government program for a reconfigurable, very high-performance single-chip transceiver that is being funded as part of the Chips Act,

And that is something that while we're also working with the government, we're talking with telecommunications companies because that's an ASIC that provides joint communication and sensing capabilities that is going to be an integral part of future six-generation, six-G systems. So, again, that's a very natural kind of ASIC for us to be. developing for commercial companies as well. Great. Yeah, I'm a big fan of the ASIC market. I spent some time there myself during my career. I think today the global ASIC market is valued at more than $10 billion, with North America, of course, being 40, 50% of that. So how will AlphaCorps grow market share here in North America? So given the expanding ASIC market, as you've already indicated, our IP portfolio is already consisting of many proven blocks that are really tailored to some of the emerging state-of-the-art technologies that are needed to move the entire industry forward. The commercial customers that were working with in telecommunications, as I mentioned, automotive, radar systems, both commercial and government.

These are all fed by our ever-broadening portfolio of IP and also our widening base of relationships. in the industry so that we're able to not only provide these ASICs to people, but improve and increase the scope and breadth of these. And our business has started to grow from its inception of a few years ago in ASICs to now we're working on several multivocytes. multi-million dollar projects. Interesting. So can you describe maybe in a little bit more detail the recent applications being addressed commercially with Alpha Core technology and expertise? Yeah, certainly. Yeah. We're right now, as I mentioned,

working with automotive companies, providing functional safety FUSA controls or aspects to the system to ensure, highest quality for automotive applications. That's actually an outgrowth or an extension of the work that we've already done for space-based applications where similar safety and reliability and longevity requirements are built in. And so we support standards like ISO 26262 and ASOLD. These are requirements for those industries. And in addition, one of our strengths, actually, is working very closely with our customers to understand their requirements.

As I'm sure you know, it is generally the case, especially when you're providing analog mix signal IP, that the requirements are more. really tailored to individual customer needs. So they'll look at your portfolio of existing IP and they say, yeah, well, that's really interesting. We really, really like that. However, we need you to tweak this or change that.

And we're very good, very adept at making those kinds of adaptations for our customers. And so the A6 that we provide then are really very tuned to maximize the customer's cost performance in the end systems where these A6 find themselves. Interesting. So is Alpha Corps contributing in development, you mentioned standards. Is Alpha Corps contributing in developing standards to accelerate the growth of these vital technologies? Yes, we do. We are a participating active member of what's called the Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions, AITIS. And that is the U.S. organization that is responsible for a lot of what is going to go into the 6G definition. This is all part of the what's called the third generation partnership project, 3GPP. And in fact, we are looking to work with some company or companies in a set of demonstrations

that will be held at the 28th Los Angeles Olympics. So look for us there. Hope to see everybody at the Olympics so that. we can show people what what uh six g is going to be capable of in addition to that we also uh we ourselves adhere to a number of standards such as iso 9 0001 uh CMC CMMC 2.0 and uh this helps assure our customers that we can provide products of the highest value when quality. And what other technology areas is Alpha Core addressing? Beyond the analog mix signal RFIP and S and SOCs and ASICs that we already discussed, we develop

full chip solutions and IP for a broad range of other kinds of applications that require LIDAR or imaging, neuromorphic imaging in particular systems, we have developed some very advanced AI-enabled imaging that will help increase overall system efficiency and speed while simultaneously reducing the power demands and ultimately driving down costs. And so, Andrew, why do you believe Alpha Core success delivering complete low power and high-speed analog mixed signal and imaging and power management solutions is a big differentiator for you guys? We are still a small company with small company can-do attitude. And at the same time, we have some very high-performance technology that we've developed. over the years. Together, being able to do that with the efficiency and focus of a small company

and yet provide leading edge, dare I say, bleeding edge solutions for our customers. It's really a unique combination. And when we are working with our customers, we very, very often find that what our customers are telling us frankly is that they are seeing that that what we're providing is really not available in the combination of you know capabilities and delivery times and costs that's not available from others and so in the end we optimize are able to help them optimize their solutions for traditional size, weight, power, and cost that today's advanced systems require. So last question, Andrew.

How do customers normally engage with Alpha Corps? We like to maintain a presence, obviously, on the web. That's mandatory these days, of course. We attend as not only participants, but exhibitors and presenters at various conferences, both technical and commercially oriented. We also like to reach out to customers on a regular basis, people that we already know and make sure that we keep people abreast of the latest offerings through things like social media, newsletters, blogs, all that sort of thing.

But it really gets down to making sure that the people that we're already working with feel like we're giving them the best value, best quality that is available. and we grow from there through word of mouth. And it's, you know, in our industry, it's really a lot of being able to deliver and, you know, deliver what you say you're going to deliver. And we've had success through those means. Great. Thank you, Andrew. Great conversation.

And I look forward to seeing you at the Design Automation Conference coming up. Thank you very much. That concludes our podcast. Thank you all for listening and have a great day.