Eric Hong is Vice President of Engineering at Mixel, a Silvaco company, where he leads the development of analog and mixed-signal IP, including high-speed PHY and SerDes solutions. Prior to Mixel, he held engineering leadership and technical roles at Nvidia, eSilicon, Samsung Electro-Mechanics, and Intel, leading the development of analog and mixed-signal IPs and ICs. Eric has over 30 years of semiconductor industry experience, holds eight patents, and earned a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from UC Berkeley and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
What brought you to Mixel?
What attracted me to Mixel was the company’s strong commitment to customer success through the delivery of high-quality PHY (such as MIPI PHY) and SerDes IP solutions, and its culture of continuous improvement. Mixel has earned the trust of its customers by consistently delivering silicon-proven, high-performance mixed-signal and interface IP. The company has demonstrated leadership in developing advanced connectivity IP for a wide range of applications, including mobile, automotive, imaging, display, AI, and IoT systems.
The company was also small enough for me to make a meaningful impact on growing the mixed-signal IP business while working closely with a highly talented and agile team. The combination of deep technical expertise, a strong focus on customer success, and close collaboration with leading foundries and SoC developers made Mixel a great opportunity for me.
What is the biggest challenge your customer is facing?
One of the biggest challenges our customers face is delivering increasingly sophisticated SoCs on aggressive schedules while managing rising development costs and IP risk. Coupled with growing design complexity and demanding power, performance, and area targets, engineering teams face tremendous pressure to minimize risk while accelerating time-to-market.
As a result, choosing the right IP partner is more important than ever. Customers need IP vendors with a proven track record of delivering high-quality IP that reduces integration risk, shortens development time, and enables first-pass silicon success.
Why is your approach to solving this problem unique?
Our approach goes beyond delivering IP. We provide end-to-end support, including IP integration, FPGA prototyping, silicon characterization, and production bring-up. Unlike with many IP vendors, our customers work directly with the engineers who designed the IP rather than through multiple layers of support, enabling faster root-cause analysis and issue resolution. Combined with rigorous design and verification methodologies, extensive DFT capabilities, and close collaboration throughout the integration process, this helps customers minimize risk, accelerate time-to-market, and achieve first-pass silicon success.
What other approaches are being used to solve this problem?
Many companies address these challenges by relying on IP vendors with broad IP portfolios and standardized support models. However, some vendors provide limited support beyond IP delivery, and customer interactions often go through multiple layers of application engineering and support teams, which can slow issue resolution and root-cause analysis.
Some SoC companies also choose to develop critical IP in-house to maintain greater control and customization. That said, this approach requires significant engineering resources, increases development costs, and can extend project schedules.
What challenges will your customers face in the near future?
The rapidly rising mask and manufacturing costs at advanced process nodes have made first-pass silicon success more critical than ever, as design re-spins can have significant schedule and financial impacts. As SoC complexity continues to grow, the importance of selecting the right IP partner will only increase. Customers will increasingly value IP providers that combine high-quality IP, comprehensive end-to-end support, direct access to engineering teams, and a proven track record of silicon success to reduce risk and accelerate product development.
How has AI changed your business strategy?
AI is driving exponential growth in edge computing across consumer, automotive, industrial, and IoT applications, increasing demand for power-efficient, cost-effective connectivity solutions. At the same time, AI-enabled systems, ADAS, and connected devices are driving the need for high-speed automotive and long-reach SerDes connectivity.
As a result, we are expanding our IP portfolio in key growth areas, including low-power interface IP and automotive and long-reach SerDes solutions such as with our ASA Motion Link IP. Leveraging continued improvements in engineering productivity, we can broaden our product offerings while helping customers reduce SoC and system costs and accelerate time-to-market.
Also Read:
Breaking the Clock Lane Barrier: MIPI C-PHY/D-PHY Combo IP on TSMC N2P
Exploring the Latest Innovations in MIPI D-PHY and MIPI C-PHY
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