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SMD Semiconductor’s Vision: Sarawak’s Roadmap From Chip Design to Commercialization

SMD Semiconductor’s Sarawak roadmap moves from chip design and talent development toward commercialization. Here’s what the goals, partnerships and latest milestones show—and what remains unproven.
From TheFinanceBase Team5 min to read
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SMD Semiconductor’s vision is to build an “Integrated Silicon Longhouse” in Sarawak: a semiconductor ecosystem that combines global expertise with local talent. Its roadmap starts with chip design and workforce development, then aims to commercialize products in areas such as power electronics and edge AI. A May 2026 report says the company has entered the roadmap’s commercialization phase, but public reporting does not yet establish production volumes, customer names or shipment dates.

What is SMD Semiconductor?

Sarawak Microelectronics Design SMD Semiconductor Sdn Bhd is a Sarawak-based fabless analogue and mixed-signal integrated-circuit (IC) design company incorporated in 2022, according to the company’s official website. A fabless company designs chips but does not operate its own semiconductor wafer fabrication plant; it relies on foundry partners to manufacture them.

SMD describes its broader aim as helping Sarawak become a regional provider of advanced semiconductor solutions by 2030. Its “Integrated Silicon Longhouse” vision is a way of expressing that ambition: bring international expertise, local capabilities, research, training and industry collaboration into one developing ecosystem. It is not the name of a single chip or a claim that Sarawak already has a fully integrated semiconductor supply chain.

What does the Sarawak Semiconductor Roadmap 2030 involve?

The roadmap is a staged effort to build capability and then turn that capability into commercial products and ventures. In a 2024 EE Times feature, SMD described four focus areas for its five-year plan:

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Focus area What it means
Design and development Use existing intellectual property (IP) to design and develop ICs.
Applications and services Apply existing IP to create turnkey products and services.
Innovation Develop new IP and explore new business cases.
New technology ventures Build ventures around assets and infrastructure, with particular attention to compound semiconductors and clean-room capabilities for silicon carbide.

The sequence matters: design capability and applicable IP can support products, while new technology ventures require additional infrastructure, partners and investment. These are connected ambitions, not proof that every stage is already operating at commercial scale.

What chips and applications is SMD targeting?

SMD’s public materials describe it as a fabless analogue and mixed-signal design house. Its stated solution areas include IC design, embedded hardware and sensor solutions, edge intelligence, RISC-V technology, custom low-power processors, heterogeneous integration of silicon and compound semiconductors, edge-AI applications and power-management ICs.

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These capabilities position the roadmap across several related markets rather than around one announced mass-market chip. In March 2025, SMD said it demonstrated an Ultra Edge Power Converter prototype at Mobile World Congress Barcelona. The company framed the work around rising data-centre demand from AI and the need to manage grid energy. A prototype demonstration is evidence of development activity, not evidence of commercial shipments or adoption.

How is Sarawak building the ecosystem around SMD?

Facilities and partnerships

SMD’s official homepage describes a planned 4.1-hectare ecosystem in the Samajaya High Tech Zone intended to bring together research and development, innovation, collaboration and partnerships. The company’s roadmap materials record agreements with Melexis in 2022, work involving Melexis and X-FAB in 2023, training and academy launches in 2024, and expansion into a UK R&D innovation hub in 2025. These milestones indicate efforts to build connections and capacity; an agreement or hub announcement alone does not establish commercial output.

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In March 2025, SMD announced that it had become Silicon Catalyst’s 14th strategic partner. The announcement characterized SMD as a fabless analogue and mixed-signal chip-design house and highlighted its Ultra Edge Power Converter demonstration. Separately, DayakDaily reported on May 19, 2026, that X-FAB was the local foundry used for chip production. A foundry manufactures wafers from chip designs; this role is distinct from designing the IC.

Talent development

Workforce development is central to the plan because chip design depends on specialized engineering skills. EE Times reported in 2024 that SMD had grown from three engineers in 2022 to a team of 30 at the time of its feature, with a target of 50 by the end of 2024. That target was forward-looking when published; the cited report does not verify whether SMD subsequently reached it.

EE Times also described a wider Malaysian workforce challenge, citing demand for 50,000 skilled semiconductor engineers against university output of about 5,000 engineers annually. These figures are sector context reported by EE Times in 2024, not independently audited current statistics. SMD’s stated responses include the SMD Chip Design Centre, SMD Academy, Semiconductor Mastery Programme, IC-design training with CENTEXS and other collaborators, and recurring make-a-thons.

What targets has SMD set, and what do they prove?

EE Times reported in 2024 that SMD aimed for a valuation of RM10 billion by 2030 and aspired to rank among Southeast Asia’s top five IC design companies. These are company ambitions as reported by the publication, not achieved results, independently verified valuations or investment-return forecasts.

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The company’s official homepage also describes a 4.1-hectare planned Samajaya High Tech Zone ecosystem and an ambition to help position Sarawak as a regional solutions provider by 2030. The size refers to the planned ecosystem, not to an established measure of production capacity or commercial success.

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Has SMD moved from roadmap to commercial products?

DayakDaily reported on May 19, 2026, that SMD had completed Phase 1 of its Semiconductor Roadmap 2030 and entered Phase 2, which focuses on global chip commercialization. The report said CEO Shariman Jamil was seeking global product partners to embed SMD chips in power inverters and solar panels, and identified X-FAB as the local foundry used for production. This is a dated signal of a shift from capability-building toward product deployment.

That report does not establish production volumes, named customers, revenue, certification status or shipment dates. The 2025 Ultra Edge Power Converter was described as a prototype, while the 2026 report describes partner-seeking and intended applications. Neither should be treated as proof of a widely available commercial product.

How to assess the roadmap’s progress

A useful assessment separates announced goals from evidence of execution. For SMD, the relevant questions are whether its design and training capabilities produce chips that meet customer requirements; whether partners manufacture and integrate those chips; and whether resulting products reach repeatable commercial deployment. The available milestones—training initiatives, partnerships, a prototype demonstration and the reported move into Phase 2—show activity across those areas, but they do not answer every commercialization question.

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For readers evaluating the company as part of Sarawak’s industrial strategy, the technology mix and ecosystem matter alongside targets: SMD is pursuing analogue and mixed-signal design, low-power processing, edge AI, power management, RISC-V and compound-semiconductor applications, supported by talent initiatives, foundry relationships and planned infrastructure. Whether those elements combine into a durable regional industry will depend on execution and customer adoption, not roadmap language alone.

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