Fablessmalli

Fablessmalli is a fictional fabless semiconductor design company used in technology case studies to illustrate the non-manufacturing model of the microelectronics industry. In this concept, Fablessmalli designs integrated circuits and licenses fabrication to external semiconductor foundries, rather than owning fabrication facilities. The company emphasizes AI, edge computing, and modular chip design, with an emphasis on collaboration with third-party manufacturing partners.

According to its hypothetical timeline, Fablessmalli was founded in 2013 by engineers Li Wei and Ana Kovac in Silicon Valley. The firm built a mixed-signal and AI-accelerator portfolio and established manufacturing partnerships with major foundries such as TSMC and GlobalFoundries. By the late 2010s, Fablessmalli claimed to have shipped several hardware platforms under the NovaCore and LumenX families, targeting data centers, automotive, and consumer devices.

Its product line centers on AI accelerators and modular system-on-chip cores that can be combined into custom SoCs. The NovaCore family provides tensor processing capabilities with energy-efficient designs, while the LumenX line focuses on computer-vision and sensor fusion workloads. Fablessmalli emphasizes 2.5D packaging and chiplet-based architectures to improve yield and time-to-market, relying on established foundries for fabrication.

The company operates on a pure-play fabless model and generates revenue through chip-design licensing, IP licensing, and design services. In analysis exercises, Fablessmalli is often cited as a case study for open collaboration between designers and manufacturers, as well as exposure to supply-chain risk inherent in the fabless model. Critics in such discussions point to dependence on external foundries and potential cycle times impacting delivery.