2026 Outlook with Randy Caplan of Silicon Creations

Randy Caplan is co-founder and CEO of Silicon Creations, and a lifelong technology enthusiast. For almost two decades, he has helped grow Silicon Creations into a leading mixed-signal semiconductor IP company with 500+ customers spanning almost every major market segment. He has driven the development of key technologies for over 700 unique SerDes and PLL IP products, in all mainstream manufacturing nodes from 350nm down to 2nm. He is well known for his promotion of an organic growth model for business and has helped guide Silicon Creations to an average annual growth rate of 25% for the past decade, with nearly 100% employee retention. Prior to Silicon Creations he was a design engineer for PLLs and SerDes at Agilent Technologies, Virtual Silicon, and MOSAID.

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your company.

Silicon Creations is a mixed-signal IP provider, specializing in low-risk, high performance clocking solutions (PLLs), high speed data interfaces (SerDes), and accurate temperature and voltage sensors. We offer designs in every foundry (TSMC, Samsung, GF, Intel, Rapidus, UMC, SMIC, and more…), and every process node (below 2nm up to 180nm, all inclusive). We were founded in 2006, are ISO9001 certified, and after 19 years, still have close to 100% employee retention.

What was the most exciting high point of 2025 for your company?

Passing 14 million (TSMC) wafers shipped using our IP. Also, we passed our 1000th production license of our Fractional SoC PLL IP.

We developed, taped out, and tested a portfolio of 2nm TSMC IP including multiple PLLs, free-running oscillators, low-noise IOs, and temperature sensor IP. We also developed select 2nm PLLs with multiple other foundries including Samsung, Intel, and Rapidus.

What was the biggest challenge your company faced in 2025?

Simultaneously developing IP in all the leading process nodes (TSMC, Samsung, Intel Foundry, Rapidus). This required new design techniques to support core-device-only requirements in GAA (gate-all-around) nano-sheet / nano-wire processes.

How is your company’s work addressing this biggest challenge?

Chip development costs in advanced nodes have gone up exponentially. We provide a substantial portfolio of low-risk, proven, foundational IP which helps enable our customers to get their designs right the first time. Our advanced design and verification flow enables fast iteration and re-verification in processes where PDKs are frequently changing. This ensures we’re not the bottleneck in our customers’ development schedule.

What do you think the biggest growth area for 2026 will be, and why?

We’re seeing growth in many parallel market segments including AI accelerator chips, consumer electronics (AR/VR/mobile), and automotive. Customer tapeouts in advanced nodes (5nm and below) are picking up. We’re even seeing active development in sub-2nm nodes. Due to long chip development schedules and fab times in advanced nodes, our IP sales tend to be a strong leading indicator of chip sales one to two years in the future. We don’t have first-hand knowledge of the end market forces, but we can infer from our IP sales which semiconductor market segments are seeing increased investment now.

How is your company’s work addressing this growth?

We use an advanced IP design flow, leveraging the latest EDA flows from Synopsys, Cadence, Siemens, Silvaco, and others. This helps to reduce IP development time, improve simulation-to-silicon correlation, and ensure our customers have the foundational blocks they need to build their high-performance chips.

What conferences did you attend in 2025 and how was the traffic?

All TSMC shows, ICCAD (China), DAC and many other foundry and EDA events (Samsung, GF, Intel, Siemens U2U, CadenceLive). Traffic was especially strong at TSMC and ICCAD, but we also had a good turn-out at our booth for the other events as well.

Will you attend conferences in 2026? Same or more?

Silicon Creations attended over 30 trade shows / conferences in 2025 and expects to attend a similar number in 2026.

How do customers engage with your company?

We already work with 18 of the top 20 TSMC customers, and over 550 companies overall. For new inquiries, please send an email to sales@siliconcr.com, or come to our booth at any trade show.

Also Read:

Silicon Creations Company Update 2025

Silicon Creations at the 2025 Design Automation Conference #62DAC

Silicon Creations Presents Architectures and IP for SoC Clocking