Global Unichip Corporation

Founded in 1988, Global Unichip Corporation (GUC) is Taiwan’s sixth largest integrated circuit (IC) design company with revenue of TW$9.28 billion (US$287 million) in 2008. With customers from around the world, GUC specializes in providing IC design solutions.

To deal with the IC design industry’s complex supply chain, GUC wanted to employ a flexible and innovative business model, and function as a key design hub that integrates IP providers and IC design partners.

However, the company had to first sort out its internal processes. Departments were working in silos and communication between systems could not be synchronized.

Project status reports proved inaccurate as project information was updated manually every week. Managing product issues required many resources and problem-solving knowledge was neither accumulated nor compiled into a database.

In addition, after each project is completed, GUC needs to continually communicate, coordinate and collaborate with wafer manufacturers, packaging plants, test plants, and other business partners. As such, it requires a comprehensive project management integration platform to handle the intricate internal and external business processes.

After careful assessment, GUC selected Dassault Systemes’ ENOVIA V6 collaborative platform. It delivers the flexibility, open standards, scalability and industry-specific functionality today’s global companies need to tie together multi-discipline engineering groups and product development contributors from other business roles. It was also impressed with the experience of Dassault Systèmes’ professional consulting team. 

The project, which began in 2008 and was implemented in phases, gradually incorporated 20 Lotus Notes systems into ENOVIA. With a highly customizable and integrated management framework, the project is now able to provide solutions for various project requirements.

The PLM system allows GUC to access past project details to quickly prepare and submit accurate quotes for each design project. Time needed to prepare quotes has been cut from three weeks to just one week.

With shared information, IC design engineers can work better as a team so that various issues can be resolved effectively. The management team has access to real-time project status information, enabling them to make more informed decisions.

Close monitoring of the design and development process helps GUC to deliver products on time so that the customer’s time-to-market objectives are achieved. “The communication platform and issue management capabilities are beneficial to our production yield and contribute considerably to the timely delivery of our products,” said Albert Li, Director of Design Development Division, GUC.

The product’s lifecycle, along with procedures, information, and issue management, can be captured using ENOVIA, giving all project team members access to immediate and accurate firsthand information.

ENOVIA enables external collaboration among IP providers, IC design partners, wafer manufacturers, IC testers and packagers. Thanks to the integrated cross-departmental platform, all staff involved in the various processes work closely with one another. With efficient allocation of staff resources, communication cost is reduced.

Tracking and follow up process information can be retained and categorized in the system for future use. Issue resolution rate has been improved from 24% to 55% within 3 months.

Automated real-time reports simplify the complexity of the implementation process and give management a complete understanding of a project’s progress and the reasons for any anomalies. Through common project templates, the execution and quality of projects can also be enhanced.

“ENOVIA V6 enables GUC to maintain its leading position in the IC design service industry. It allows us to utilize our corporate resources more efficiently and substantially reduce the complexity of our project control processes,” said Albert Li.

GUC plans to extend the business scope of its PLM system. On the revenue side, it is enhancing the timeliness and accuracy of pricing, real-time quote response, and simultaneous quote assessment in order to win more business deals.

To control expenditure, shipping quantities and schedules can be correctly forecasted to help GUC secure bargaining power with suppliers. The system can also help to reduce high costs due to project delays through an early warning mechanism. Inspection reports are automatically generated under the application mechanism of process standardization, thus the product’s defect rate can be reduced through the inspection of standard index reports.