SandCraft

About SandCraft

SandCraft, Inc. was a fabless semiconductor design company established in Silicon Valley in 1996 by founder Norman Yeung and chief architect Mayank Gupta. The company's name was a blend of "sand," representing the silicon used in microprocessors, and "craft," to signify a design-focused house. SandCraft specialized in designing high-performance microprocessors based on the MIPS architecture, targeting its solutions for electronics products in the consumer, office automation, and communications sectors. Its product portfolio included a series of RISC CPU chips and semiconductor intellectual property. One of its notable achievements was the development of the SR71000, which at the time was the world's highest-performing MIPS processor. This processor incorporated advanced design features like a superscalar, multi-staged pipeline.

The company's business model was centered on designing and developing these sophisticated microprocessors and then contracting Asian-based foundries, such as United Microelectronics Corporation (UMC), for manufacturing. SandCraft's processors were engineered as the computing engines for a variety of applications, including control plane processing, internet infrastructure equipment like edge switches and routers, and even Nintendo game consoles. To enhance its product capabilities, SandCraft licensed technologies from other industry players, such as Alcatel's Gigabit Ethernet MAC soft core technology, to integrate into its CPU designs. The company successfully secured funding from a range of investors, including Allegro Capital, Cisco Investments, and Chase Capital Partners.

On July 29, 2003, SandCraft was acquired by Raza Microelectronics Inc. This event marked the end of SandCraft's journey as an independent entity. Subsequently, Raza Microelectronics was acquired by NetLogic Microsystems in 2008, which in turn was bought by Broadcom in 2012, absorbing SandCraft's legacy and intellectual property into the larger corporation.