(Petaling Jaya, 14 December, 2020) Key ASIC sees chips that go into medical equipment and other pandemic related or accelerated products are currently booked for production till July 2021 amid third wave of the pandemic and rapid growth of 5G.

 

The market is predicting that the price of chips is likely to increase by 30-40% in 2021 due to strong demand overall.  Key ASIC is a leading-edge technology company that design and market ASIC chips to customers in Asia, US and Europe.

 

The Company specializes in Artificial Intelligence systems and Internet of Things (IoT) chip with multiple patents awarded in U.S., China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia and many more patents are pending approval.  Millions of units of these chips have been shipped.

 

“Other than strong demand from the health industry, we see strong demand also from other industries.  The market is demanding for devices, equipment or things to be connected so that they can be remotely controlled and managed for online services,” said Eg Kah Yee, Chairman and CEO of Key ASIC.  “5G is driving very strong growth in the IOT and Artificial Intelligent market rapidly,” he added.

 

To date, over 71 million of infected cases and more than 1.6M death are recorded worldwide with nearly 700,000 new cases each day.  The United States and Western Europe are experiencing higher infection in the third wave and the virus is spreading to the developing countries and the pandemic is expected to continue well into 2021.

 

Due to the unpredictability of the pandemic, companies are making longer production plans in managing unexpected disruption of the supply chain due to sudden surge of the virus. 63% of the companies have reported some form of supply chain shortage during the pandemic.

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According to a study done by Global Semiconductor Association, the chips business that are growing rapidly at this time are in the applications of 5G, Internet of Things (IOT), and Artificial Intelligence.

 

Companies are constantly reviewing their business plan to adapt to the new normal by increasing the investment in the areas of automation, cloud and connectivity enabling not only more online business activities but also the services to be delivered online.

 

In addition to the continuous strong demand of chips for ventilators, there is a surging demand for the Internet of Medical Things (IOMT) technologies to get medical equipment in the hospitals or clinics to be connected.  Hospitals are also providing home wireless Internet of Medical Thing devices such as blood pressure monitor, oxymeter, glucose meter and ECG device to manage patients at home.

 

Impacted by the virus, companies are investing into technologies to transform their businesses to adapt to the pandemic and post pandemic era by going online minimizing the people’s contacts.

 

 

 

 

About Key ASIC:

Key ASIC Berhad (Stock Code: keyasic 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. 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, Europe and Asia. It has offices in Malaysia and Taiwan.

(Petaling Jaya, 2020) 17 June, 2020. Key ASIC’s patented technology MCard™ and UCrest’s iMedic™ have jointly won a deal in combating the pandemic of COVID-19. Following the penetration of the sleep disorder clinics in the US market, Key ASIC’s MCard™ has successfully designed in and bundled with the ventilators shipped by the leading non-invasive ventilator manufacturer in China, BMC Medical http://en.bmc-medical.com/covid-19).

 

The devices from BMC Medical is one of the most sought after non invasive ventilators in this pandemic and it is expected to grow rapidly with this remote monitoring and management capability.

 

As a total solution in the same deal, UCrest’s iMedic™, the leading online digital healthcare platform is also integrated to bundle with the BMC’s ventilators to allow patients to upload data from the ventilators to the Cloud for doctors to review from the distance.

 

In this deal, Key ASIC’s MCard™ is bundled and shipped with ventilators of BMC Medical so that the ventilators are the Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) and Wi-Fi ready to connect to the Internet. iMedic™ PatientAPP and PartnerAPP are also bundled with the ventilators so that doctors can manage the patients remotely, without having to come into close contact or face to face with the patients, reducing the risk of infection of the frontline healthcare workers. The PartnerAPP allows BMC Medical to manage and support its channel partners effectively in the shortest possible response time.

 

According to a marker research report published by Meticulous Research®, the ventilators market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 15.8% from 2020 to reach $7.72 billion by 2027 with non-invasive ventilators growing at the highest rate.

 

Key ASIC is a leading-edge chip design technology company that design and market ASIC chips to customers in Asia, US and Europe. One of its core technologies is Internet of Things (IoT) with over 13 patents awarded in U.S., China, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia.

 

UCrest is the leading online digital health platform provider where iMedic™ is capable of connecting over 20 FDA and CE certified medical devices including ventilators with the most robust Electronic Medical Records (EMR) in the Cloud.

 

With the pandemic, ventilators are in high demand and BMC Medical has not only received NMPA approval from China FDA, but also with FDA (U.S.A) under Emergency Use Authorization, CE (European Union), and many other countries including Mexico, Argentina, Australia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, etc. for its ventilators.

 

In addition to the use of ventilators by the COVID-19 patients, BMC Medical’s ventilators are widely used by the sleep disorder patients.

 

“As part of the Internet of Things or IOT strategy, we aligned Key ASIC and UCrest’s product roadmap in the healthcare sector right at the beginning where Key ASIC’s IoT chip technology will convert medical devices or equipment to be Wi-Fi enabled so that the traditional devices can be wirelessly connected to UCrest’s iMedic™ Digital Hospital Cloud platform that will allow healthcare providers to offer their medical services online and manage their patients remotely keeping the frontline healthcare professional safe,” said Eg Kah Yee, Founder and Chairman of Key ASIC who is also the Founder and Chairman of UCrest.

 

“We expect to have more bundling deals of MCard and iMedic with various medical devices in the near future and enabling millions of patients to get online medical services”, he added.

 

In addition to ventilators, MCard has also been shipped with fundus camera used by the ophthalmologist and spectrum meter used for light analysis.

 

The demand of non-invasive ventilators is expected to rise rapidly as it can be used comfortably at home or when travel for any respiratory related patients and managed by the doctors remotely.

 

 

 

 

 

About Key ASIC:

Key ASIC Berhad (Stock Code: keyasic 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. 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, Europe and Asia. It has offices in Malaysia and Taiwan.

 

About UCrest:

UCrest Berhad (Stock Code: ucrest 0005) is the leading mobile health platform developer and operator with its iMedic™ Cloud Hospital used by thousands of doctors and patients in the US, Russia, China and other Asian countries. iMedic™ is wirelessly connected to more than 20 different type of devices and it is powered by advanced Internet of Medical Things (IoMT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies capable of performing comprehensive analysis of the health data of the users to produce timely and accurate health information.

 

 

 

 

FAQ:

 

Q1: What is the contract amount?

A1: We have a very strict NDA with the customer and we are not able to disclose at this time. There are a number of customers that have the chips designed and manufactured with us that are currently used in the ventilators.

 

Q2: What is the financial contribution to KA?

A2: We are not able to disclose financial at this time. The orders are coming in strong and our customers are forecasting more MCards and iMedic are needed for the rest of the year.

 

Q3: What is the life cycle of this product?

A3: Healthcare products have much longer life cycle than consumer electronics and that is what we like about this. Most like this product will last about 8-10 years with some upgrades.

 

Q4: COVID-19 seems to be under controlled in some countries and does this impact the business?

A4: Though the pandemic maybe over one day, the use of ventilators for sleep disorder patients are growing at about 6.8% per year. With the pandemic, patients and doctors are now aware that remote monitoring is available and we expect adoption to grow for the sleep apnea market.