August 2010 Archives

The Americans seem to have done a good job of mucking up the European semiconductor industry.

MARINE RADAR - BRITAIN SETS THE PACE

'Britain's world leadership in marine radar was confirmed last night. Nearly 600 shipowners and technical staff were at the Royal Festival Hall in London as guests of Decca Radar Ltd to hear of important new developments contributing to safety of life at sea.'

 So, 50 years ago this year, starts the front page lead story in Electronics Weekly's edition of November 9th 1960.

The story continues:

'Decca are now offering shipowners the most comprehensive range of marine radars in the world.'

'The well-established range of X-band 3-cm radars known as the D.7 series has been extended by the addition of four completely new models.'

'In addition a new S-band 10-cm radar has been added to the range. This is the first S-band marine radar ever produced by Britain and is already ahead of competitive American models.'

'All the new models employ a 75-kW transceiver and a slotted waveguide aerial. These combined give increased range and improved discrimination.'

Many people originally got into the semiconductor industry because the first semiconductor guy they saw was a well-dressed guy in a flashy car. Jerry Sanders III, Founding CEO of AMD, Dick Skipworth, Founding CEO of Memec, and Sir Robin Saxby, Founding CEO of ARM, were no exceptions

One of the weirdest non-events of 2010 has been the 'Intel to buy Infineon wireless unit' story which has been running for about three months now across multiple media without anything actually happening.

There was once a company which did amazing things and had cash reserves of $40 billion.

It's good to meet a CEO who's open to new business models, who looks to new uses for his technology, supports new technology developments and seeks new ways of taking his technology to market. James Lewis, founder of Oxford Semiconductors, now CEO of NXT, is like that.

To return to the Intel-McAfee thing - which has been a welcome talking point in a down time for talking points - here are four of the best comments which came out of it:

Thanks to VLSI Research for this one: the top ten suppliers of semicondsucotr manufacturing equipment in Q1 2010.

The first industry to squeal was automotive, Nissan closed six car factories because of chip shortages. The second squealer was the telecoms equipment industry with Ericsson  saying it had lost $400 million in revenues because of chip shortages. The latest squealer is the smartphone industry.

50 years ago this year, under the headline 'Computer Languages Are In English', the September 14^th 1960 edition of Electronics Weekly, carried the following story:

'OMG it's all happening. The shit has hit the fan again', Ed tells his diary, 'we look like being delinquent on more orders because our assembly, packaging and test house has started to mess us around with short deliveries.'

In the dog days of mid-August it was good of Intel to give us something to talk about by paying $7 billion for a software security firm.

When Hans Snook was setting up the Orange phone network in the UK in 1994 he found that market researchers had been asking people what they wanted from the new network.

The scale of the destruction wreaked on NXP by its private equity owner KKR was further revealed in NXP's Q2 results.

There was once a chief engineer on a computer development project which founded a new class of computer - the minicomputer.

It's good to hear of a young chip company pursuing wildly different applications with the same generic technology.

STMicroelectronics is not the only European semiconductor company to have been caught out by the upturn. NXP's Q2 earnings report states:

Thanks to Databeans for this one - the top ten analogue IC suppliers last year.

Are iPad apps very expensive? This has been pointed out to me and, if it's true, it seems to fit the image of the iPad as the Louis Vuitton of the handheld world.

50 years ago this year, in its 'Patent Pointers' section, the Electronics Weekly edition of September 14^th 1960 carried the following snippet.

'I see from the market analysts' reports that the analogue IC market is expected to grow at 30% this year, but our analogue orders are growing at less than a third of  that', Ed confides to his diary, 'the time has come for me to crack the whip.'

When J.P.Morgan sent a frisson of fear through the tech industry last week by announcing that PC sales were falling off a cliff, could it have been because people are buying other things: e-readers, big-screen smartphones, iPads, other tablet/slate-type stuff and portable media players?

David Potter, founder and CEO of Psion, tells a good story about how he gave the company its name.

UK VCs are a resilient breed. At a time of fairly general uncertainty, they've displayed robust confidence in British high-tech.

There was once a great man who spent time in both Lebanese and Israeli jails for eccentric behaviour while a paratrooper in the Israeli army. He was pardoned by Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion.

So how's this for a scenario:

Plastic Logic, the Cambridge plastic electronics specialist, seems to have got itself into a mess.

'Criticism of the government's policy in controlling credit was expressed by Mr M Sobell, chairman of Radio and Allied (Holdings) Ltd in his annual report presented at the a.g.m last week.'

So, 50 years ago this year, starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of September 14^th 1960.

(Historical Note: The following year, 1961, Radio and Allied merged with GEC and the son-in-law of M. Sobell (later Sir Michael) was Arnold Weinstock who became managing director of GEC in 1963).

'Trouble', Ed writes in his diary entry, 'a customer has gone public saying that its production lines have stopped because we failed to deliver the whole of an order.'

No one will ever again believe a private equity guy when he says he has special skills in valuing corporate assets and managing companies.

In 1992, Hutchison realised that its UK mobile communications business was struggling. It asked Hans Snook, then working for Hutchison in Hong Kong, to go to the UK and find out why.

A 21mm thick instant-on laptop with a 10 inch screen, weighing 870g, running Android on an Nvidia ARM-based processor, costing around £250 with a stand-by time of a week, is exactly what the computer market was expecting - about a year ago.

There was once a company, 110 years old with a turnover of £10 billion plus, which got a new boss.

For anyone who remembers the old Intel, yesterday's settlement of anti-trust proceedings with the FTC, has its sad side.

Those pesky rumours that Infineon's wireless business is up for sale for $1.5 billion have been swirling around for a couple of months now, and keep swirling.

Thanks to SEMI for this one - a sharply upwards revised version of its expectations for fab spending this year. Here they are: the top ten spenders on fab in 2010.

The wife of a friend showed me her iPhone 4 at the weekend. It was a disappointment. Those rounded edges which make the iPhone 3G feel good in your hand and good to slide into your trouser pocket are gone. It's got square edges. It feels bricky.

Greater efficiency in their services to customers all over the country using a newly installed Leo computer was demonstrated by W D and H O Wills at Bristol, on Monday.

So, 50 years ago this year, starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of September 28^th 1960.

'I'm in the dog-house - again', Ed confides to his diary, 'I was at a so-called "Cocktail Party Fiesta" following an industry conference  when a journo who seemed a nice affable interested type asked me what I'd be looking forward to after the IPO.'

When you see companies like Nissan, Ericsson, Alcatel-Lucent, and Nokia-Siemens Networks complaining that their businesses are being adversely affected by a shortage of semiconductors, you know there's a problem.