That was the headline of the cover story in the April 1st 1986 internal Intel newsletter during the worst hit the US semiconductor industry ever took, losing 27,000 jobs, 13 per cent of the electronics jobs in Silicon Valley and $2 billion in earnings in two years.
Apologies for rather erratic posting over the last few days due to a move to a new version of the posting software.
The software appears to be stable and understandable and, hopefully, the normal schedule of 7am and 3pm posts will be resumed.
Innovation has to return to the semiconductor industry at the transistor level rather than the exploitation of the massive transistor counts made possible by modern scaling, according to Andy Rappaport General Partner at August Capital.
Rappaport, who has invested in Actel, Atheros Genoa, MMC Networks, Silicon Architects (acquired by Synopsys) Silicon Image, Viewlogic and Transmeta has not invested in any start-up that proposed using 90nm or 65nm processes.
"The share of companies that will choose to develop very large chips will have to fall, if bulk transistor utilisation is expensive relative to value, marginal transistor improvement can be hugely valuable relative to cost," says Rappaport, who founded The Technology Research Group (TRG), and used to be an editor at EDN, a sister magazine to Electronics Weekly.
To put it another way, Rappaport says: "Lack of easy scaling makes clever scaling really important."
Continue reading "Innovation has to return to the semiconductor industry - Rappaport" »
In an era when the semiconductor industry is forming more alliances than at any time in its history, many of which are international alliances, it is salutary to turn to one of Japan's great CEOs, Tsuyoshi Kwanishi, formerly CEO of Toshiba Semiconductor, who set out in his book, Chip Management, ten rules for forming alliances.
Kawanishi formed notable international alliances in his time at Toshiba - e.g. with Siemens Semiconductor, later extended to Siemens, IBM and Motorola. His ten rules are:
Continue reading "Ten Rules For Alliances by Tsuyoshi Kawanishi" »
The question reverberating around the chip industry is: Can Intel compete in a market of which it only owns 10 per cent of the customers' customer base?
Continue reading "Can Intel Succeed In Wimax Chip Market?" »
The glories of England are its history, countryside and pubs. If you want to wake up to one of England’s most wonderful views stretching thirty miles across the Somerset Levels, where Alfred burnt the cakes, to Glastonbury Tor and the Mendip Hills, set within striking distance of some of England’s best pubs, then book a brand new, high-tech apartment at www.thecowshed.info.
I needn’t have bothered going to the Dubai desert to find out about the 3G iPhone. Popping down my local High Street produced the same result. The 3G version is out next month in Europe and, in the UK, O2 will handle it.
Continue reading "3G iPhone To Be Sold By O2 In UK In June" »
In the Dubai desert, a group of semiconductor industry glitterati throw off their suits after the first day of the International Electronics Forum 2008 and and form a blues group.
When the immigration officer leans back in his chair with a bit of a smile and you say Hullo and he says Hullo and, without another word, stamps your passport and hands it back, you know you’re entering a civilized country. So it was coming to Dubai last week.
Intel’s decision to exit the semiconductor memory business, is usually attributed to a conversation between former CEOs Gordon Moore and Andy Grove. But Grove, in his book Only The Paranoid Survive, lays the credit elsewhere.
Apple’s coyness in refusing to reveal whether the iPhone it is launching in ten countries shortly is in fact the 3G iPhone has been a waste of time. Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) revealed that it is the 3G version of the iPhone which it is going to launch in Italy next month.
Continue reading "Yes, It Is The 3G iPhone In Europe Next Month" »
The reason why Samsung, Intel and TSMC announced last week that they were combining to push 450mm wafer manufacturing technology is because no one else wants it, according to Dr Mark Pinto, executive vice president and CTO of Applied Materials, the world’s largest manufacturer of semiconductor production equipment.
Continue reading "No One Else Wants 450mm, Says Mark Pinto" »
Satellites casting all communications barriers aside, and making television and radio available to the world’s most inaccessible settlements are about to become a reality, according to Mr Fred Adler of the Hughes Aircraft Company, who presented the main lecture at the 6th International Television Exhibition and Symposium in Montreux last week.
Apple seems to have become paranoid about its foreign iPhone sales. Yesterday, Vodafone announced it has signed an agreement with Apple to sell the iPhone in ten countries: Australia, Czech Republic, Greece, Italy and Portugal, Egypt, India, New Zealand, South Africa and Turkey.
My thanks to Dr Dwight Decker, chairman of Conexant and the Global Semiconductor Alliance for this one. Here are the ten best reasons not to be engaged in the semiconductor industry:
Continue reading "Ten Reasons Not To Make ICs by Dwight Decker" »
It’s funny to see Intel, TSMC and Samsung saying they want 450mm wafer manufacturing. Wouldn’t any device manufacturer? The question is: Will Samsung, Intel and TSMC pay for it?
A great semiconductor company has a culture, and that culture usually comes from one person. At Intel it came from co-founder Bob Noyce who, as the son of a non-conformist Minister, respected excellence and loathed hierarchy.
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