Three winners of Electronics Weekly's Elektra awards answer our questions this week: Danny Biran, senior v-p of product and corporate marketing at Altera, Guillaume d'Eyssautier, CEO of PicoChip and Steve Rawlins, CEO of Anglia Components
EW Was 2007 a good year for your company?
DB From a revenue perspective 2007 was a challenging year for the PLD industry and for Altera. The consolidations of communications companies and the slowdown in wireless infrastructure deployment in parts of the world were among the factors that led to no growth in our market. However, in several other ways 2007 was a very good year for Altera. We started to ship our two 65nm FPGA families – Stratix III, the lowest power high performance FPGA and Cyclone III, the low power low cost FPGA. Towards the end of the year we introduced the MAX IIZ family of zero-power CPLDs, targeted at portable applications like handsets. We also accelerated our 45nm development plans and we are on track to introducing the first 45nm products in 2008.
G d’E Superb. We saw WiMAX starting to deploy for real, femtocells becoming widely recognised, and garnered in some really key tier one design wins. And we won three Elektra awards.
On a personal note, I was elected to the EMEA Leadership board of the GSA (Global Semiconductor Association - formerly FSA), which is a great honour.
SR 2007 was a great year for us – and not only because of our double win at the Elektra awards. Once again we’ve outperformed the market: our sales for the year were up by 6 per cent on 2006, even though AFDEC figures indicated the components distribution market was down by seven per cent. Anglia has consistently increased its market share across all industry sectors – some of this was due to expanding our portfolio, but we’ve also seen growth within many of our existing product ranges.
EW How is business looking for 2008?
DB We expect growth to resume in 2008, and be in line with our long-term growth expectations of 10-15 per cent CAGR.
G d’E Very good indeed. Design wins are vital, but 2008 is the year we turn them into serious revenue. And we will be announcing some new products and new programs that will be exciting.
SR We’re beginning the year with our strongest ever order book, and also have some exciting new franchises ready to come on board. However, we’re aware that market conditions are becoming tougher, so we’re being careful not to become complacent.
EW Does all the talk of credit crunches, house prices and interest rates have anything to do with your business?
DB There is always a risk that a recession of any sort will affect the business. However, Altera is very diversified in terms of the market segments we sell to, and the parts of the world we sell to, so we aren’t as exposed as many other companies to local issues.
G d’E Well, like anyone, we prefer a stronger economy, but the nice thing about infrastructure markets are they are less volatile than consumer markets, so we are reasonably covered.
SR Interest rates and consumer confidence are certainly a concern. Some of our customers are reporting that their own order books are looking rather short, and there is less long-term visibility than we’ve been accustomed to recently. We are fortunate though in addressing a considerable diversity of applications sectors, which helps to dilute the effect of any short-term dip in the consumer market. Exchange rates generally cause more of a problem for companies that export their products, although if our industrial customers are affected in that way then ultimately we will be too.
EW What technologies should we write about in Electronics Weekly this year? (be honest, not partisan)
DB Any technology or product that addresses power consumption is significant. The focus on the environment, the rising price of oil, the increasing demand for portable devices, and the fact that cooling a system is one of the most expensive challenges of system designers, all point to the importance of products and technologies that address power consumption.
G d’E The move from 45 to 32 to 22nm - who will do it, how will they do it, what will fabless companies do? Also: batteries – people have to solve those; better user-experience - the iPhone is great but what else is there; ‘Greentech’ - lower-power, smarter; the balance between flexible and low-cost - SoC versus programmable. And let’s not forget femtocells, the next major thing that will transform residential electronics, just like set-top boxes did.
SR Wireless continues to be an exciting market, and it would be good to see a regular section devoted to tracking the different wireless standards. LED lighting is also set to be huge news in 2008. I’m not just saying that because of our recent investment in that sector; it’s actually the other way around – we invested in LED lighting because we know it’s going to be a rewarding market to be in.
EW What gadgets did you buy last year? Any you have your eye on this year?
DB I recently bought a big screen HDTV, but there is nothing I have my eye on for 2008 just yet.
G d’E I am not a gadget freak I’m afraid, but I will buy an iPhone when it’s 3G.
SR Last year our gadget purchases were business-oriented, mainly Blackberries. But as a family we’ve promised ourselves a WiFi home entertainment system in the New Year, probably the new Philips WAC3500D Streamium.