Despite pessimism in some quarters about the future of VC-backed semiconductor start-ups, the IET/GSA Semiconductor Forum in London threw up a happy picture that all is well.

"There's a lot of doom and gloom around, and that's because products are commoditised, and the foundries are responsible for consolidating the products", said David Milne, founder and chairman of Wolfson Microelectronics, "the products in the digital world are not sufficiently differentiated to get a return on them."

Stan Boland, CEO of Icera Semiconductor, took exception to that: "One of our three chips is a digital chip. It's a microprocessor, but a very high performance microprocessor because of the algorithms in it which deliver a higher performance than any other product."

Jamie Urquhart, general partner at venture capitalists Pond Ventures, was asked: "How much longer will VCs be prepared to fund new start-ups?" by Simon Knowles, vice president of silicon engineering, at wireless start-up Icera.

"Is that because Icera is using up all its VC money?" cracked Urquhart. Icera has raised $142.5m, and is looking to raise another $60m this year.

Urquhart added: "As Moore's Law continues there will be opportunities to make money and VCs will invest in them. It depends on good people. What worries me most is: Have we got the right seeds to continue investing in new people to drive our industry?"

Boland of Icera was confident that we have got the right people. "I am amazed at the talent we have, and the ability to assemble amazing teams of people and set them on a mission to be successful", he said, "we have the best the best engineers on the planet in Europe."

Asked by Sir Robin Saxby, founder and former CEO and chairman of ARM, what gave him satisfaction as a VC, Urquhart, a co-founder of ARM, replied: "The reason I became a VC was not to make money, but because I enjoy working with passionate people who want to make things happen. I was recently in London seeing five companies and thought: 'It's fantastic I'm getting paid to meet people with fantastic ideas'. Start-ups are going to be the seeds of the industry's future."

Milne of Wolfson considered industry volatility to be a positive for investors. "Investors like the industry to go up and down like a yo-yo because that's when investors make money," he said.

Milne predicted: "In 18 months there's going to be a wall of money looking for investment."

Agreeing with Milne's optimism, Mike Gera, general partner at Pond, said: "We are active in semiconductors and will continue to be so." He added that new companies could replace today's industry leaders. "There are great opportunities for yesterday's heroes to go down the toilet," said Gera.

Asked if today's dominant companies like Intel, STMicroelectronics and Qualcomm could be overtaken by new companies, Boland replied: "I don't know if Qualcomm will disappear, but I wish they would."

See also: Mannerisms, the blog of David Manners. Updated twice daily, it's the distinctive, entertaining, authoritative and never dull commentary on the semiconductor industry, from someone who knows. Sign up for the Mannerisms eNewsletter.