“We offer Silicon Design Services with leading-edge engineering capabilities to the who’s who of the Semiconductor Industry”: BlackPepper Technologies

“You can design and create, and build the most wonderful place in the world. But it takes people to make the dream a reality” -Walt Disney

Understanding the need of creating significantly differentiated design services and making a difference in the semicon design industry, BlackPepper Technologies Pvt Ltd came into being. BlackPepper commenced its journey in 2011 as a small startup providing Physical Design services to a single Tier-1 semiconductor company. The brainchild of Hari Krishnan Puravankara, BlackPepper has grown to a strength of 110 engineers in 5 years expanding its breadth of service offerings both upstream and downstream of Physical Design.

Today, BlackPepper is uniquely positioned in the semiconductor design services space with class leading engineering capabilities spanning the entire product realization value chain. The current market scenario is characterized by consolidation and integration of small semiconductor services companies into the folds of much larger IT behemoths. The resultant loss of focus is a huge opportunity for primarily hardware focused consultancy companies like BlackPepper.
Located at Bangalore, Singapore, Taiwan and USA, BlackPepper’s primary geographies of operation are India, North America and the APAC region.

A little about BlackPepper’s patented Service Technology Framework ‘EYWA’
Focused on providing cost-effective turnkey silicon solutions with the most efficient cost and predictability metrics, BlackPepper’s patented Service Technology Framework – EYWA – forms the backbone of their turnkey success stories. EYWA integrate four key components – LTE (Lean Tall Engineering) wherein their engineers are trained to deliver more engineering per engineer, DEOD (Design Environment on Demand) wherein a program is executed using the optimal minima of compute and license resources, SSCS (Sure Shot Convergence System) wherein a homegrown implementation flow allows predictable convergence and a robust IP Vendoring framework.

Black Pepper’s Unique Service Offerings
BlackPepper’s service offering includes: Architecture, Design, Low Power Implementations, High end Verification solutions, Physical Design, DFT, DFM, Synthesis/STA, Post Silicon Validation, AMS solutions, Board Design, Embedded Software, Package design, Yield enhancement solutions and Supply Chain Management.

Over the last two years, BlackPepper has been delivering turnkey silicon projects and is now moving towards integrated system and product design services.

Making a difference through the distinctive philosophy of ‘core engineering’
BlackPepper Technologies differentiates through core engineering strengths as exemplified by their philosophy of Lean Tall Engineering. LTE is a return to the roots of engineering of yesteryears where a single massively multi-skilled engineer can perform the work of several other engineers.

BlackPepper’s employee owned model has resulted in near-zero voluntary attrition compared to the >20% engineering turnover rates currently prevalent within their larger peers in the services industry.

On the roadmap side, they remain fiercely niche with zero temptation to sell out to larger suitors.

Knowing the Key Decision-Makers

Hari Krishnan Puravankara, CEO- Over a 16+ year career, Hari has been deeply involved in Silicon design, Supply Chain Management, Foundry relations and technical support. He has developed a vast personal network among diverse communities – be it technology, financial, media, branding or legal. He has cultivated deep connections with thousands of ‘small-innovators’ across the length and breadth of the country.

Hari started his career at Wipro Technologies as a cell library and physical design specialist. He gained his Bachelor of Engineering degree from Cochin University of Science and Technology in Electronics
Engineering in 2000.
Sujeeth Joseph, CTO- Carrying 25 years of experience, Sujeeth Joseph is a semiconductor industry veteran in the SoC, System and Product architecture space.

At SanDisk India, he was Director of Architecture for the USD $2B Removable Products Group.
Simultaneously, he also headed the SanDisk India Patenting function, the Retail Competitive Analysis Group and drove academic research programs with premier Indian academic Institutes.

Prior to SanDisk, he was Chief Architect of the Semiconductor & Systems BU (SnS) of Wipro
Technologies. Over a 19 year career at Wipro he has played hands-on and leadership roles across all phases of the ASIC & System design flow. He is an Electronics Engineering graduate from Bombay
University in 1991.

Manoj Sundareswaran, Exec. VP, Delivery- An industry veteran in the area of Chip Design, Manoj has been a SoC Product Specialist with more than 16 years of experience.

He has been instrumental in implementing & delivering multiple first pass SoCs across Automotive, Wireless, Wireline, Health Care domains as part of Infineon, Lantiq and Wipro.

His expertise spans across RTL Design, Chip Implementation, Package Design, Silicon Ramp-up and foundry support. He has built large teams from scratch, ramped up business and anchored critical projects for the customer.

Jei Narayanan, COO- A vastly experienced professional with over 25 years of industry experience, Jei was the Practice Head of the IC Design team at TATA Consultancy Services since 2011. Prior to that he was a Group Head in the Semiconductor and System Business unit of WIPRO Technologies for over 14 years, and served the organization in various capacities ranging from managing large ASIC design programs to system programs for multiple global customers. In his capacity as VLSI Competency Group Head, he was instrumental in hiring and training more than 700 fresh engineering graduates over two years to equip them to contribute to ASIC design programs.

“95% of our business is repeat business from Fortune 100 companies, representing the trust and confidence that industry majors have reposed in us”

He has an M.Tech in Electronics from IT, BHU, Varanasi.

Serving the who’s who of the Semiconductor and System Industry 
Since their inception in 2011, BlackPepper Technologies has succeeded in gaining the trust of the who’s who of the Tier-1 Semiconductor and Systems Industry, providing disruptive solutions in domains ranging from Mobile, Wireless, Computing, Telecom, Medical, Automotive and the Internet of Things.

They are extremely proud to be associated with and be considered as a trusted partner of these
companies.

The Future 
Marching ahead with time, BlackPepper Technologies has strategic plans for their future where they will continue to grow aggressively in India, North America and APAC and soon will be expanding their footprint into Europe, Israel, South Korea and Japan. Additionally, they have planned to capture a large segment of the turnkey business in the emerging IoT space.

“Our ‘employee ownership’ model helps us to promote systematic growth of the organization under proven leaders from top class semiconductor companies across the world”