Q1: In relation to COVID19, as the world is slowly going back to normal, are there any new obstacles your company faces which the pandemic has caused? If so, how are you over coming these?
At the start of COVID19, we implemented what we call the WECARE Fund Policy to set up a comfortable work from home office for all our employees. As the situation improved, we elected to adopt a hybrid model to implement a safe transition back to the office. Most of our teams are working two days in office and the rest of the week at home, which enables us to group small cohorts together, while maintaining social distancing protocols. We have found that our teams benefit from face-to-face interaction and collaboration and are able to achieve certain tasks more efficiently in a conference room rather than over a call. With the evolving Delta variant, we are staying vigilant and following the recommendations of local governments.
Q2: With the latest technology and AI becoming more advanced, how is your company keeping up with these times?
One of the reasons we founded Alif was that we saw a gap in the embedded market for devices that can seamlessly scale from single to multi core, and along that entire performance spectrum offer strong device security, wireless connectivity, the ability to efficiently perform AI-operations, and while doing all of this, also be genuinely power efficient. Our embedded processors contain technology such as Cat-M and NB-IoT Cellular Connectivity, built in SIM (iSIM), GNSS positioning, AI/ML Acceleration, Graphics, Imaging, and more. We are very excited to see what developers of IoT devices will be able to do with them.
Q3: How did your organisation avoid supply chain disruptions during the pandemic?
Due to the timing of our silicon schedule, we were fortunate to avoid any major supply chain disruptions throughout the pandemic, as we were largely still in the design phase. We recognize that this has been a major issue for many of our competitors who struggle to meet the demands of their clients and we look forward to the opportunity to help alleviate this pressure for users of embedded devices by the introduction of our solutions to the market.
Q4: Do you believe employees working from home is sustainable and will be the future of the workplace?
We believe that COVID19 has shifted the workplace culture permanently and that companies should alter their policies to meet the new expectations of employees; however, we also recognize that in person collaboration often cannot be matched. Therefore, a delicate balance between the two must be maintained to achieve optimum working conditions and achieve the most productive results from our teams. It is a learning process for us, and our employees, so we look forward to continued feedback from both sides as we navigate the changing landscape of the modern workforce.
Q5: Is there anything exciting in the pipeline within your company which we can expect within the next 12 months?
This is an extremely exciting time for Alif Semiconductor™ as we look to the launch of our Ensemble™ and Crescendo™ families of MCUs and fusion processors. These devices are scalable, secure, connected, AI- enabled, power efficient, and overall, they are unlike anything seen on the market today. We are already sampling these products to our lead customers and the mass market can expect access as early as 4Q21. Looking further out, we are already in the design process for a third family of devices- more details on this in the future.
Questions answered by Henrik Flodell, Senior Marketing Manager at Alif Semiconductor
Company: Alif Semiconductor
