Sofics Receives Contribution Award for Services to RCJ Symposium, IC Industry in Japan
Company Presents Paper on ESD Protection for HDMI Devices at RCJ Meeting
TOKYO, JAPAN/GISTEL, BELGIUM (Oct. 22, 2009) – The Reliability Center for Electronic Components of Japan (RCJ) today presented its RCJ Symposium Contribution Award for service to the Symposium and to the Japanese semiconductor industry to Sofics (www.sofics.com) of Gistel, Belgium, a leading provider of electrostatic discharge (ESD) solutions to IC designers, producers, and foundries.

“Sofics has been a strong supporter of the drive to improve the reliability of electronics, and has achieved several breakthroughs in ESD protection,” said Noboru Shiono, Senior Manager of RCJ. “We are pleased to recognize Sofics for its many contributions to the Symposium.” The award was presented during session on ESD in semiconductor devices and electric systems at an RCJ Symposium in Tokyo. As part of the Symposium, Sofics presented an invited paper on a method for achieving on-chip ESD protection for HDMI interfaces without compromising performance.
“We are honored to receive this recognition from RCJ,” said Koen Verhaege, CEO of Sofics. “Participation in the RCJ Symposium has been a vital part of our effort to advance the state of the art in ESD protection. Sofics is committed to working with Japan’s semiconductor industry to achieve higher reliability, better performance, and lower cost in electronic devices.”
Sofics had previously received the 2007 Nippon Export Award from the Belgium-Luxemburg Chamber of Commerce in Japan for its success in providing sophisticated ESD solutions to Japanese semiconductor producers. It has also won the ESD Association’s 2009 Industry Contribution Award for outstanding contributions to the IC industry and the association.
“Sofics has been a strong supporter of the drive to improve the reliability of electronics, and has achieved several breakthroughs in ESD protection”
Noboru Shiono, Senior Manager of RCJ
Recent Sofics innovations include a product line that offers ESD, LU, EOS, and IEC protection for high-voltage, automotive, and power ICs. Sofics offers product-proven ESD solutions for virtually every process generation, with experience in ASICs, FPGAs, LCD drivers, power, consumer and communication ICs. Its TakeCharge® portfolio of on-chip device-level solutions has been implemented in over 600 IC tape-outs.
Sofics solutions for ICs portfolios are licensed world-wide to major producers and smaller companies alike, including Toshiba, Fujitsu, Panasonic, NJR, Altera, PMC-Sierra, Inphi, Epson, OKI Semiconductor, Renesas, Ricoh, Sony, Infineon, AMIS, Nanotech, Tower, ON, RedMere, Gennum, Actel, CamSemi, THine, and Cissoid.
About Sofics
Sofics bvba (www.sofics.com), formerly known as Sarnoff Europe, provides solutions for ICs. Today, Sofics focuses its product development and worldwide business on licensing, engineering tools and design services derived from the TakeCharge® on-chip device-level ESD protection IP portfolio, and the newly created on-chip system-level ESD protection portfolio for high-voltage ICs. Sofics bvba is an independent IP provider, fully owned by Kogeni bvba.