The Sondrel transformation to Aion SIlicon!

Ollie is a commercially astute senior leader with over 20 years of experience in strategy, business development and sales across the technology and engineering sectors, with a strong track record in scaling businesses and driving growth. He has held commercial leadership roles in FTSE 100, private equity-backed, and startup companies, working extensively across Europe, North America, and Asia.

Daniel Nenni, Founder of SemiWiki: Your recent re-brand as Aion Silicon has caught our attention. Can you share the background on the re-brand and what the future holds?

Oliver Jones, CEO of Aion Silicon: Our name change is the culmination of our strategic reset last year. When we went private, tightened our focus and refreshed our  leadership team, we realized the brand also needed to reflect where we’re heading—high-performance, AI-centric silicon delivered through a high-touch consultative model. The name Aion Silicon signals that new chapter: same 20+ years engineering pedigree, renewed commercial ambition and a mandate to grow in North America. Over the next 18 months, we’re increasing design capacity, upgrading our delivery model and further developing ecosystem programs with foundry and IP partners. The goal is clear: become the go-to design partner for companies that need custom silicon but don’t want the bureaucracy of a mega-vendor.

SemiWiki: What is the significance of the new name? How did you decide on it?

Jones: The word “Aion” evokes endurance—an era rather than a moment—while “ion” is the fundamental charge carrier in semiconductor physics. Together they capture long-term partnership and deep technical roots. We weighed dozens of options but kept returning to a name that couples scientific precision with forward momentum. It also distances us from any carry-over perceptions tied to pure design-services work and underlines our continued evolution into full lifecycle ASIC delivery.

SemiWiki: Were there market or customer changes that drove the re-brand?

Jones: Absolutely. The rise of domain-specific AI accelerators and edge devices, compressed product cycles and raised risk. Customers told us they needed earlier architectural help, tighter program management and foundry-agnostic guidance—services that go beyond traditional RTL handoffs. Rebranding allowed us to frame that expanded offer and signal to U.S. and EMEA prospects that we’re more than a UK design house; we’re a global partner with a global footprint built for the AI era.

SemiWiki: How will Aion Silicon’s products and services differ from those offered by Sondrel?

Jones: The legacy pillars—SoC architecture, front-end and back-end design—remain, but we’ve layered on turnkey supply-chain orchestration, chiplet capabilities and reference AI platforms derived from our Architecting the Future libraries. We now lead engagements from concept through tape-out and volume ramp, offer system-level architecture consulting, and license select IP such as security firewalls and power management. We can agnostically offer best in class 3rd party IP via our partner ecosystem, provide design-for-security reviews and run early package/co-design workshops. 

SemiWiki: AI appears to be a key driver. What capabilities did Sondrel have here, and how will you leverage them as Aion Silicon?

Jones: In the recent past, Sondrel delivered 30-billion-transistor SoCs and video processing engines long before AI became table stakes. That gave us experience with high-bandwidth fabrics, memory hierarchies and performance-power optimization that transfer directly to today’s AI accelerators. As Aion Silicon we’re scaling those flows to below 3 nm, adding model-based verification for sparsity and quantization schemes, and partnering with tool vendors for hardware–software co-simulation so customers see workload performance before tape-out.

SemiWiki: Looking ahead, what markets and customers will you serve?

Jones: We’re focused on four verticals where custom silicon moves the needle: data-center AI and HPC, automotive ADAS, advanced networking/5G and edge inference. Our sweet spot is the “Tier 1.5” player—companies big enough to ship volume but too lean to dedicate their own  100-person team to a new chip..

SemiWiki: Which geographies will you emphasize?

Jones: North America is priority one—major AI innovators are here and expect close collaboration. However, we continue to support and expand long-standing customers in Europe and Israel where next-gen automotive and networking projects are heating up.

SemiWiki: How will your offerings evolve to address these changes?

Jones: Two tracks. First, deeper ecosystem ties—we recently joined Intel Foundry Services’ Accelerator program, adding to relationships with TSMC and Samsung Foundry. Second,  more vertical reference platforms so customers can prototype quickly, then hand off to our turnkey flow for tape-out and supply-chain management.

SemiWiki: Anything else you’d like to share with our readers?

Jones: Only that the name may be new, but the ethos is not: integrity, engineering rigor and customer success remain our yardsticks. The industry is moving from “one-size-fits-all” silicon to highly specialized devices. That shift rewards combining agility with SoC architectural depth. Aion Silicon was built for this moment, and we invite engineers who need differentiated chips—without the overhead and risk of doing it alone—to engage with us early, while requirements are still fluid. If your roadmap needs custom silicon without custom headaches, Aion Silicon is ready to help.

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