After the Ten Best Decisions Ever Made in the Chip Industry http://http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/david-manners-semiconductor-blog/2007/03/ten-best-decisions-ever-made-i.html and another long evening, here are the Ten Worst Decisions Ever Made In the Chip Industry.
William Shockley's decision to make a four layer diode rather than a commercial device which led to the defection of the Fairchild eight.
Sherman Fairchild's refusal to make Bob Noyce CEO of Fairchild Camera & Instrument which led to Noyce, Gordon Moore and Andy Grove leaving Fairchild
Intel co-founder Bob Noyce's founding investment in AMD which got AMD off the ground.
Purchase of Fairchild by Schlumberger which cost Schlumberger a cumulative $1.4bn loss between 1979 and 1987
Purchase of Mostek by United Technologies Corp which cost UTC a cumulative $1.3bn loss between 1979 and 1985.
The decision to blow $300 million on Gene Amdahl's start-up Trilogy which was to revolutionise computer logic by using wafer scale integration on square wafers.
The decision to found U.S.Memories by seven US semiconductor and computer companies fearing they'd be held to ransom by Japanese DRAM suppliers.
Japan Inc's collective decision to stick with DRAM manufacturing for 15 years after it became unprofitable.
Motorola Semiconductor's decision to de-emphasise the 68000 microprocessor architecture to pursue PowerPC with IBM.
Intel's $10billion+ spending spree on telecoms IC companies in 1999/2000.
NEXT WEEK: Ten Best Chips Ever Built
Leave a comment