Studying Naveed Sherwani’s Ventures in the Evolving Semiconductor Technology Industry

Semiconductor industry veteran and acclaimed academician, Naveed Sherwani is an internationally recognized serial entrepreneur backed with more than 30 years of experience as a semiconductor industry veteran. He is a researcher, author, and serving co-founder, CEO, and Chairman of Rapid Silicon, an EDA and OpenFPGA company headquartered in the United States.

Sherwani received his BS degree from the NED University in electrical engineering. In 1984, he moved to the United States and enrolled in the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to complete his MS degree and Ph.D. in computer engineering. He was a teaching assistant at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and a professor at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo.

He founded Intel Microelectronics Services (IMS), a successful ASICs solutions provider in the United States, as a subdivision of Intel after serving professional roles under Andy Grove, CEO of Intel from 1993-1997. His research and more than 100 publications focus on EDA, VLSI, ASICs, FPGAs, CAD algorithms, and AI for innovative semiconductor design-to-chip development processes.

Sherwani’s journey began as a NED University alumnus and currently, he serves as the Co-founder, CEO, and Chairman of Rapid Silicon. A company driving innovation and automation in Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) production for domain-specific applications in industrial, automotive, telecom, and data processing sectors. Sherwani has introduced artificial intelligence-assisted chip design automation and re-spin processes to facilitate the incorporation of increasing demands for programmable logic devices operating with low cost of ownership.

For example, the telecom industry is facing challenges with the deployment of 5G technology for increasing use cases. The hurdles come at the increasing cost of building, maintaining, and operating infrastructures at high costs along with poor wired and wireless transmission across remote radio heads, backhaul, routers, base stations, gateways, and switches. With FPGAs based on an open-source framework of foundries and IP using ASICs solution at Rapid Silicon, the challenges are tackled cost-effectively.

The Field Programmable Gate Arrays at Rapid Silicon are produced with the added facility of AI enhancement and EDA tools. The faster design-to-market turnaround is crucial for the deployment of 5G technology for various use cases. Open-source FPGAs are ideal for packet processing, bridging protocols, data transmission, and conversion, making them a low-latency and cost-effective counterpart of FPGA technology provided by several tech giants.

Rapid Silicon remains competitive by supporting round-the-clock research and development of its open-source FPGA technology. With the launch of the first OpenFPGA prototype chip, Sherwani hopes to revolutionize the deployment of FPGA technology in numerous industry verticals with distinct Power, Performance, and Area (PPA) needs. The current statistics and performance reports of open-source FPGAs by Rapid Silicon show greater flexibility of FPGAs in accommodating machine-specific protocols on a single system or board to fulfill end-user requirements.

Sherwani’s product through Rapid Silicon stands unique in the burgeoning industrial sector by providing high-speed data transmission, high bandwidth, and real-time processing features for application-specific use cases. The low latency and parallel processing capabilities make open-source FPGAs ideal solutions for automotive industry applications, such as in-vehicle Wi-Fi, smartphone integration, and vehicle performance management functions. Naveed Sherwani engages with enterprise customers through Rapid Silicon’s official website, linked below.

https://rapidsilicon.com/