We already provide targeted support to our customers in highly consulting-intensive markets such as automotive, consumer, general lighting, medical technology, renewable energies and RFID. Now we are going one step further and raising our services to the next level with a new and revolutionary service.

Under the name EBVchips, we are now defining our own semiconductor products, which we are developing with and for our customers!

These products will be manufactured by our suppliers, fulfilling special requirements of customers not covered by products already available. This makes EBV the first semiconductor specialist in the world to offer such a service. With EBVchips, we offer our customers competitive advantages, as they will now receive exactly the products and technologies they require for their individual applications.

With EBVchips, we are now an extension of the manufacturer for many thousands of customers. In this capacity, we are raising semiconductor distribution to a whole new level. 2009 was the ‘Darwin year’ for the semiconductor industry. Those who carry on as before and do not reach the next level of evolution with their products and services will find things very difficult in the long run. This belief is reflected in our new slogan: Distribution is today, Tomorrow is EBV!

In future, we no longer want to sell just our manufacturers’ products.
Based on the wishes and requirements of our customers, we will define our own semiconductors, which our manufacturers then produce for our customers.
To do this we have targeted discussions with customers in specific sectors. For example, we make enquiries with companies that wish to produce a wind turbine, a car, a solar panel or a blood glucose meter. We have divided these customer groups into vertical market segments – Automotive, General Lighting, RFID, Medical, Renewable Energies and Consumer. We intend to build specific chips for customers in these segments. Basically, however every customer has access to EBVchips. If the idea can be implemented and has sufficient marketing potential, we are open to all good suggestions!
These semiconductor components have an original part number from the manufacturer and are stamped with the corresponding manufacturer’s logo. EBV Elektronik then has the exclusive global sales rights for the component for an industry-standard period, usually three to five years.

Our Vertical Market Segment Managers create the specifications for the chips. We take these specifications to the manufacturer and ask if they can develop and produce this particular semiconductor. The manufacturer then begins chip design as part of its normal design process.
Our marketing and sales staff are all engineers, but designing the chip requires more than just writing the specifications. For this reason, EBV Elektronik will also have employees who function as ‘translators’ in order to translate the specifications from Product Marketing into the language of the chip designer.

The minimum quantities of EBVchips also vary depending on the application and type of semiconductor. Microcontrollers, for example, generally require several million EBVchips. By contrast, power modules for wind turbines, for example, may only require between 20,000 and 30,000 EBVchips. As far as manufacturers are concerned, therefore, minimum quantities depend on factors such as the application, chip size, housing and price. EBV, however, is happy to supply its customers with small quantities if required.

We know very well the technology capabilities of each manufacturer and what is best suited for the application at hand. If we know two or three manufacturers who would be in a position to develop and produce the relevant product, then we would naturally make enquiries with them in order to draw a comparison. However, in 90% of cases we can go directly to the most appropriate manufacturer, as we already have excellent knowledge of both the product range and their technology portfolio. EBV customers thus always have access to the technology best suited to their needs.

The manufacturer takes responsibility for adhering to the specification, plus the separate matter of whether it carries out chip design in-house or contracts it out to a design service provider. As ever, EBV will also act as a pure distribution channel with these new application-specific semiconductors. Liability, guarantee, qualification, delivery period, etc., for the new EBVchips are incumbent upon the manufacturers themselves.

It always depends on the application. In the case of a microcontroller, it will be, perhaps, a couple of million units. For a power module for wind turbines for example, we could start with 20,000 to 30,000 units. The minimum unit quantity for the manufacturer depends completely on the application, chip size, casing, price and various other factors. In turn, we also supply our customers with individual samples if required. If customers only give us marketing input, in principle the intellectual property of an EBVchip belongs to us. However, if a customer undertakes to receive a very high unit quantity (one million units, for example), the intellectual property could then naturally remain with this customer.

We need input from our customers. For example, if we speak to 50 customers, our specialists will ensure that an EBVchip corresponds to around 90% of each customer’s ideas. We then ascertain the quantity in which each customer requires this component. In principle, we are open to input from all customers, regardless of the potential unit figures. Whether or not this results in an EBVchip remains to be seen. It is exactly the same process with the manufacturers. They make enquiries with their key accounts, and EBV Elektronik does the same with small and mid-sized companies. We are a key account for the manufacturer, and an interface to the mid-sized companies. We can thus offer our customers the newest and best possible integration in state-of-the-art technology – and for a better price than a solution based on standard components. Increased reliability and the advantages of the integrated solution are enjoyed by customers as something of a bonus.
Large customers – that is to say, the key accounts of the manufacturers – have always had access to the latest technologies and so always grew, but the mid-sized companies were left in their wake so to speak, and the gap between these customer categories widened further. We are now pooling our resources to additionally offer mid-sized companies access to completely new specifications and individual solutions with a better price/performance ratio. With EBVchips, we are now an extension of the manufacturer for many thousands of customers. In this capacity, we are raising semiconductor distribution to a whole new level. 2009 was the ‘Darwin year’ for the semiconductor industry. Those who carry on as before and do not reach the next level of evolution with their products and services will find things very difficult in the long run. This belief is reflected in our new slogan: ‘Distribution is today, Tomorrow is EBV!’

The manufacturers do not have the manpower in their product marketing departments to take care of thousands of customers. In addition, a customer acting alone will generally not manage to achieve the necessary unit quantities to make the product attractive for the manufacturer. On the other hand, we naturally wish to accommodate customers particularly engaged in defining a new chip, also with regard to related conditions. If a customer has an idea for an EBVchip, they simply need to contact their partner at EBV on-site. Every idea is welcome. After all, this is the first time in the history of the semiconductor industry, that a distributor is taking care to ensure that even recipients of small unit quantities receive products specially tailored to them in the newest technology with the best possible integration and the best price/performance ratio.

The manufacturers were all enthusiastic about this idea, and we have already had substantial discussions with them. Many manufacturers have been waiting indirectly for years to receive bundled and detailed information of precisely what is needed by the thousands of customers purchasing via distribution.

Until recently, we were not organised in the appropriate way. Through the introduction of the vertical market segments, we have restructured these areas so that we are now in the position to provide targeted EMEA-wide support for these segments in order to obtain the required information for EBVchips. If we had sent a Field Applications Engineer (FAE) to customers before we had established the vertical market segmentation structure, to ask which chips they required, this FAE would have gone to automotive and consumer and medical customers, and that would not have worked. We therefore structured the market segments first.

As long as we can handle everything with the manufacturers on our line-card, there is no reason to do this.

EBV Elektronik is the owner of the intellectual property. All relevant semiconductor manufacturers have already signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) with EBV to ensure that our ideas remain protected. After all, we must also sign NDAs for the manufacturers to protect their trademark rights.
Regarding intellectual property: naturally, all IP blocks, including relevant third-party IP, can be incorporated into the design possibilities of each manufacturer.

Whatever happens, we want to think on a modular basis in order to bring together the technologies of various manufacturers with the approval of all participants. Initially, we are integrating these chips into a hybrid but later-on that could also be implemented in a multi-chip module. We already have some very good ideas along these lines, but do not want to give away any more details just yet.

We intend to launch our first EBVchips very soon. But the processes must be aligned first, and all participants are still in the learning phase. After all, we are dealing with a completely new idea. Until now, no other distributor has done anything like this. It is also a case of getting to know the whole procedure better and obtaining answers to the following questions in practice. How long does the design phase take for the manufacturer? How long does the manufacturer require for testing, qualification, etc.? How long does it take before engineering samples are available? When do the first orders arrive?
When these processes are in place, we can then begin to integrate chips from various manufacturers. We already have partners in a position to combine various chips on a hybrid, but that is still a vision of the future at the moment. The whole thing must first be internalised as a concept of all participants – employees, manufacturers and customers. We already have many good product ideas in the pipeline, but we will proceed in a structured manner, one step at a time!