(Petaling Jaya, 20 April 2017) KeyASIC Berhad (Stock Code: 0143) announced today that its 1st IOT Workshop conducted locally yesterday was a huge success. Over 70 local companies from a wide variety of local industries attended the half day work. The Workshop was developed by KeyASIC and jointly co-organized by MDec.

Following the continuous decline of PC sales as a personal computing platform and wide adoption of smart phone due to its mobility, the technology industry has been making investment increasingly into the IOT market. Unlike the PC and smart phone market where the platform is limited to PC or smart phone, the IOT concept is to making any electronic powered device or non-electronic “thing” to be directly connected to Internet where the intelligence of the computation resides in the Cloud. With the IOT technology, it literally means.

The Company has launched its first IOT workshop on February 14, 2017 to any businesses who are in the process of entering or extending its business with IOT technology. Over 60 companies ranging from healthcare, fitness, equipment manufacturers, building management companies, senior care operators, schools, surveillance companies, textile companies, transportation companies, power companies, software developers and system integrators have attended, showing strong demand to transform the business to an IOT business model. The IOT workshop will be held in Malaysia in the near future and is expected to hit the road in China market as well. The Company expects to have more design wins in the fitness equipment market.

Additionally, KeyASIC also has signed an agreement with United Power Technology Research, Technology Corporation (UPRtek), an affiliate of the Phison Group in incorporating Mcard into their Spectromter. The basic function of a spectrometer is to take in light, break it into its spectral components, digitize the signal as a function of wavelength, and read it out and display it via a computer. The slit vignettes the light as it enters the spectrometer. The Company has already shipped thousands of Mcard™ with the spectrometers.

The Company has already been shipping Mcard™ with the CPAP machines in the mobile health market for patients with sleep apnea problem since 2016.

About the Companies

KeyASIC Berhad (Stock Code: 0143) is a public listed company on Mainboard of Bursa Malaysia.  It specializes design and manufacturing of IOT chips and system, connecting any electronics and non-electronic items to the Internet. Kcard, Kdrive, Mcard and Mdrive are the IOT products currently shipping in the market.  It also offers turnkey ASIC design service and SoC design and manufacturing.  Its customers are largely in the US, Russia and Asia.  It has offices in Malaysia and Taiwan.

(Petaling Jaya, 3 April 2017) KeyASIC Berhad (Stock Code: 0143) announced today that it has signed a Joint Marketing Agreement (JMA) with Huali Microelectronics Corporation (HLMC) to jointly develop a total solution offering ranging from IP development, ASIC design services, wafer production, test development and packaging to fabless ASIC/SoC and system design companies. KeyASIC shall be an IP and ASIC design partner to HLMC and HLMC shall be a foundry partner for KeyASIC.

HLMC is the first fully automated 300mm (12 inch) wafer fabrication foundry in mainland China. Located in Shanghai, it has offices in Japan, Taiwan and United States. Its process technologies are capable of logic and FLASH based design and it has CMOS process technology nodes of 55nm, 40nm and 28nm. Its monthly wafer production capacity is about 35,000 wafers per month. The product mix includes RF, Low Power, Ultra Low Power, High Voltage and embedded FLASH technologies which are ideal for mobile Internet of Things (IOT) market such as healthcare wearable devices, smart homes, automotive and industry 4.0 systems.

Both companies also agreed to focus on providing complete solutions to customers in Japan and expand to other countries as there are limited foundry capability and capacity that has process technology beyond 65nm for the SoC designs. Japan has the largest pool of Integrated Device Manufacturers (IDM) that design, components, test and packaging of the chips and it also has the largest pool of electronic system companies that consume the chips produced.

KeyASIC is one of the very few design companies that has a very complete suite of IP blocks for SoC design ranging from harden CPU cores, ADC/DAC, Memory blocks and high speed interfaces such as USB2.0, USB3.0, PCI-e1.1, PCI-e 2.0, SD2 and SD3 whilst HLMC is one of the few foundries that has the latest process technologies. The partnership in providing a total solution strengthens the position of both companies in the market.

The joint marketing activities include joint call to customers, joint technology forums, design consultation, customer referral and joint development of one stop service solution from IP development, SoC design services and chip production.

“This partnership will enhance our marketing capability not only in Japan, but also in the China market. Our IP and design service capabilities will help to score more design wins in the advance process technologies space with HLMC. This will us to accelerate our penetration to both of these markets,” commented Eg Kah Yee, CEO of KeyASIC Berhad. “Their focus on HV, RF and Ultra Low Power process technologies is ideal for our IOT strategy,” Eg added.

About the Companies:

KeyASIC Berhad (Stock Code: 0143) is a public listed company on Mainboard of Bursa Malaysia. It specializes design and manufacturing of IOT chips and system, connecting any electronics and non-electronic items to the Internet. Kcard, Kdrive, Mcard and Mdrive are the IOT products currently shipping in the market. It also offers turnkey ASIC design service and SoC design and manufacturing. Its customers are largely in the US, Russia and Asia. It has offices in Malaysia and Taiwan.

About HLMC

Shanghai Huali Microelectronics Corporation (HLMC) is the first 300mm fully automated Integrated Circuit (IC) fabrication foundry in mainland China that has technology nodes of 55-40-28nm, with maximum capacity of 35,000 wafers per month. Its current product focus are low power, high performance, RF, high voltage, image sensors and embedded memory.