SHANGHAI, China — Taiwanese ASIC design services house Faraday Technology is hoping to double its US design wins during the next two years by partnering with Arrow Electronics, a distributor and third-party designer for top ASIC suppliers such as LSI Logic, Altera and Toshiba.

Faraday's won't be gunning for tier 1 system houses, though. It's goal is access to the vast network of tier 2 and 3 system design companies in the U.S., where its only sales and support location is in Sunnyvale, Calif.

"There are a lot of tier 2 companies out there that are doing very good business and will be very good ASIC customers, but they can't find ASIC vendors and we can't find them," said Charlie Cheng, vice president of Faraday's international business division.

Arrow will help sell Faraday's ASIC and structured ASIC technologies through its North American sales and design centers, which reach thousands of small system companies. Initially, designs will be based on 0.18 and 0.13 micron, but toward the end of 2007 Faraday expects to be offering 90-nm designs.

It is Faraday's first distributor in America. The deal has been in the works for nearly two years, and Faraday believes that after the Arrow sales force is trained in its product line, the distributor will represent 50 percent or more of its U.S. design wins. "Arrow will double the U.S. design win count and probably represent 25 to 35 percent of Faraday's total revenue in four years. It will be significant," Cheng said.

Overseas design wins comprised 35 percent of Faraday's design wins this year.