KUALA LUMPUR (Aug 28): Integrated circuit (IC) designing firm Oppstar Bhd is not experiencing any slowdown in customers’ enquiries, despite the ongoing slowdown in the semiconductor industry.
“IC design is the very first step in electronic products creation. [For] a mid-sized chip, it takes about a year and a half, sometimes up to two years, just to do the design. For ODM (original design manufacturer) players, [if] they have cash holding, normally they will not stop their new product development.
“Because their new products [will] only [be] released two- to three years down the road, if they stop it, when the economy recovers, they would have missed it,” Oppstar chief executive officer Ng Meng Thai told The Edge after the group’s annual general meeting.
Although certain ODMs slowed down in their pace of kicking off new projects, Ng said there is shortage of IC designers to fulfil demand.
“The whole world is running short of IC design talent; that is why we continue to receive enquiries from customers,” he said.
Ng said the group’s current workforce consists of 254 engineers, up from 225 engineers as at end-March, and remains on track to meet its target of having up to 500 engineers over the next three years.
Unlike a typical semiconductor company, IC design firms do not involve massive investment in production plants or machineries. Their capacity in terms of volume and complexity of a project goes by the size of the talent pool they can access.
As demand for IC design remains strong, chief technology officer Cheah Hun Wah said Oppstar is riding on this trend to expand capacity by hiring more engineers, as well as trying to enhance its technical know-how, in order to provide a wider range of solutions in fulfilling different customers’ needs.
“We are going to reshape segments of our design functions. Yester-years were about how we transform Oppstar to be a public company through IPO (initial public offering). Post-IPO, we are going to be much aggressive.
“In the past few years, [when] there was [the Covid-19] pandemic, we pushed ourselves through. Today, yes there is [industry] correction, geopolitical and all that, but at Oppstar, we continue to move forward. We have our track record: our turnkey design [businesses] continue to progress,” Cheah said, adding that the management will also continue to enhance its post-silicon validation services.
Earlier this year, Oppstar bought out the remaining 42.5% stake in Oppstar Microelectronics Sdn Bhd from Sophic Automation Sdn Bhd for RM325,000.
Oppstar Microelectronics is principally involved in the provision of post-silicon validation services, and Oppstar said the acquisition enabled it to expand the line of services, which is expected to complement the group’s core activities of IC design.
Oppstar’s share price has more than doubled to RM1.65 on Monday (Aug 28), from its IPO price of 63 sen. It hit a high of RM2.43 on its maiden trading day. The company is valued at RM1.05 billion at the closing price of RM1.65 on Monday.