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FADU Technology, the first unicorn in South Korea’s semiconductor sector, is preparing for its initial public offering next month to secure funding of up to 193.8 billion won ($151 million) for the development of next-generation semiconductors, aimed at dominating the global data centre chip market.

The innovative startup, which specialises in designing architectures for solid-state drive (SSD) controllers and storage products has set an indicative IPO price band of 26,000 won to 31,000 won per share. At the top end of this range, the company could raise 193.8 billion won, resulting in a market capitalisation of 1.49 trillion won. It aims to go public on the Kosdaq market on August 7.

The funds raised from the IPO will be primarily utilised for mass production of its chips and the development of cutting-edge chip architectures. These include artificial intelligence chips and the Computer Express Link (CXL), an innovative interface that enables seamless interconnection between processors like Central Processing Units (CPU), multiple memory devices, and accelerators such as Graphics Processing Units (GPU). FADU aims to achieve this breakthrough technology between 2027 and 2030, offering data centres worldwide a comprehensive and advanced semiconductor solution.

“(Our) SSD controllers for corporate use are ready for commercial production, and they are recognised by global data centres as one of the world’s best products in terms of performance and reliability,” said FADU.

The company became Korea’s first unicorn, or a private company worth $1 billion or more, in the country’s semiconductor sector when it raised 12 billion won during its pre-IPO funding round. The surge in demand for 5G networks, autonomous driving, AI, the Internet of Things, and augmented reality has been a significant driving force behind this burgeoning market, signalling the high expectations and immense potential of the system chip market.

System chips, also known as non-memory semiconductors, play a crucial role in controlling logic, calculations, and various functions within electronic devices. Remarkably, these chips encompass nearly 70% of the global semiconductor market, which is estimated at a staggering 560 trillion won. FADU’s specialisation lies in SSD controllers, which are a type of system semiconductor responsible for regulating SSD modules. This focus positions the company to capitalise on the growing demand for cutting-edge storage solutions and further contributes to its remarkable success in the industry.

Among the solutions it provides, The FADU ECHO GEN5 SSD platform is designed for hyperscaler, hyper-converged, cloud, edge, and enterprise storage arrays and servers and will lead the industry in lower power and performance with availability ready for data centre deployments in 2023.

The FADU DELTA GEN4 SSD platform are powered by FADU’s FC4121 controller. The FC4121 Gen4 Controller is highly energy-efficient, and delivers the industry’s highest Gen4 performance. Given its consistent low-latency, the platform ensures superior Quality of Service (QoS) for various workloads, making it a reliable and high-performing option for diverse data centre requirements.

About Us

FADU Technology is a fabless company developing advanced flash storage technology to meet the explosively increasing data storage demands placed on hyperscale, enterprise and cloud data centers. Our innovative SSD solutions are based on industry-standard specifications, designed with FADU’s proprietary Flash Memory Controller architecture, and compatibility with multiple industry NAND suppliers. FADU’s storage designs address all aspects of Flash-based storage – very low power, ultra-high performance, rich feature sets, solid reliability and superior QOS. The company believes that other solutions, with legacy ties to the past, are unable to meet the performance and power requirements to support real-time, cloud-based, connected applications. FADU’s global team, of seasoned storage architects, ASIC experts, and SSD engineers, is charting the course for the industry.