Mannerisms

Now there's a challenge. Analogue is for artists, Italy is a country of artists and analogue IC designers rely on personal artistry.

The IC industry is going analogue as it seeks to replicate real-life experiences as precisely as possible for the consumer, and that makes analogue designers the kings of the chip industry.

Rich Beyer, now CEO of Freescale, formerly CEO of analogue IC companies Intersil and Elantec says: "At Elantec, when I was CEO I was the fifth highest paid guy in the company. The top four guys were all design engineers."

At Intersil, Beyer introduced incentive programmes for analogue designers.  "As they develop products that are successful, they benefit from that success", said Beyer, "as products go into the marketplace they can achieve significant bonuses. Our design engineers get bonus cheques every quarter. Some get over $100,000 per quarter in a bonus cheque."

ST is almost a mainly analogue company. "We're building a new ST, a better ST," says ST CEO Carlo Bozotti, "analogue accounts for 45 per cent of our sales."

Alain Dutheil, ST's COO, says: "Analogue revenues were $3.8 billion in 2007 making ST the No.2 in the world in analogue." ST's overall 2007 revenues were $8.8 billion.

"Analogue is moving to a higher proportion of total revenues", says Carlo Ferro, ST's CFO, "ST is increasing its investment in high margin analogue products."

Carmelo Papa, executive vice president for ST's industrial and multi-segment sector, said: "Analogue is the core focus and strategy for the coming years for the group. We will concentrate on the very high margin and difficult products to make."

So, if you hear the sound of violins wafting through the air of Agrate, you'll know what those analogue designers are up to.