November 2010 Archives

If the Euro is to be saved, and whether it's worth saving is problematical, then there'll have to be a two-tier Euro.

Being the boss of Glofo, the aspirant Abu Dhabi-backed foundry company, must be daunting when the incumbent market leader says it will spend more on capex next year than the $6 billion it spent this year, and when the other major foundry aspirant - Samsung - has been burbling on about spending some $20 billion on fab.

Jean Hoerni, the inventor of the planar process and co-founder of Fairchild Semiconductor, Amelco, Intersil and Union Carbide Semiconductor, made a big contribution to educating children in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Akio Morita would have understood it all right. If you bring out Japan's first transistor radio, if you bring out the world's first consumer-affordable video tape recorder, if you bring out the first CCD-based video camera , if you bring out the first portable music-player - then you have a massively successful business.

Once upon a time:

The semiconductor industry is expecting 7% growth next year, but it is "absolutely wrong", Malcolm Penn, CEO of Future Horizon, told the recent European Nanoelectronics Forum 2010 in Madrid.

It's good to hear tales being spun of a post-Wintel world where chips are bought because of their characteristics rather than financial and legal pressure. 

Thanks to the UNCTAD survey for this one: the ten most attractive prospective areas for R&D. They are:

While the UK VCs talk about a constipated investment cycle due to lack of IPOs, the US VCs are talking boom-time again.

Mass Data Transmitted Over Phone By Electronics

                            1500 words a minute

50 years ago today, this was the headline in Electronics Weekly's edition of November 23^rd 1960.

'I am now worth $10 million', Ed confides to his diary, 'the IPO went as planned. The VCs are happy. I have my fuck-off money.'

For 22 Years John East was CEO of Actel. For the 20 years before that he worked at AMD and Fairchild in the days when the industry was wild and woolly. Here he shares a tale or two.

Do people want pocket TVs? History says not but, back in the 1960s it seemed like a good idea to Sir Clive Sinclair.

Only three of the top ten vacuum tube companies - GE, RCA and Sylvania - also made it into the ranks of the top ten transistor manufacturers.

It is shocking that the EU has now got more money for microelectronics R&D projects than there are projects to use the money.

One of the most extraordinary potentials of microelectronics is its promise to replicate the human senses - sight, smell, touch and hearing.

Thanks to the PriceWaterhouseCoopers book Five Frogs On A Log for this one - the ten most common stated objectives of CEOs looking to make an acquisition:

The Kindle makes all that talk about convergence look like bollox.

Edinburgh's First Digital Computer.

This was a headline, 50 years ago today, in the issue of Electronics Weekly of November 16^th 1960.

'We're going for it', Ed confides to his diary, 'it's good to be home after that bloody dog and pony show. What a royal pain in the arse. All those thin-lipped, cold-eyed jerks asking shitty questions aimed at screwing things up.'

Which was the most important semiconductor company? There are a lot of contenders here but few without which the industry would have been different. Here are some:

David Potter, founding CEO of Psion, recalls the crash of 1984 when much of the UK's fledgling microcomputer industry went to the wall. Psion was involved as the writer of the software for Sinclair's latest computer - the QL.

There was once a CEO of a start-up who was ousted by his VCs. He decided to start a new company but found it so difficult getting funding that he maxed out all his credit cards to keep going.

It would be absurd to expect trains to run on batteries. So why do we expect electric cars to run on batteries?

If an IC can have a romantic history, then CCD - 41 years old this year - must be a romantic chip.

Thanks to Caris & Co for this one: the ten worst performing semiconductor shares so far this year:

Brain implants? Sounds a bit Sci-Fi. But IMEC's Wolfgang Eberle, manager of the bioelectronics group, reckons they could be 10-20 years away from reality.

Computing the President

Nixon or Kennedy? - electronic

    forecasts flashed on TV

 from our New York correspondent

50 years ago today, this was the Page 4 headline in Electronics Weekly's edition of November 9^th 1960.

'I'm 100% knackered', writes Ed in his diary, 'this afternoon I gave the presentation for the 50^th time which means there are 20 to go with a 12 hour flight to Shanghai on Thursday and then on to Tokyo before heading back to Blighty on Saturday. It's been an absolute bugger."

As for all the UK microcomputer companies, the market crash of 1984 was the denouement for Sinclair Computers.

The market momentum of the iPhone continues to astonish.

In the late 1980s four Japanese steel companies decided to get into the semiconductor industry.

It was interesting to hear the JPMorgan semiconductor analyst ask ST CEO Carlo Bozotti at the Q3 earnings call whether the fab-lite trend is on the wane.

In a year in which the semiconductor market is expected to grow 30%, NXP looks as if it will grow at zero per cent.

Thanks to Caris & Co for this one - the ten companies with the biggest  % share price rise so far this year:

Why on earth has Intel decided to fab Achronix FPGAs?

Call For New Reliability Concept

Have we reached the limit?

50 years ago today, the front page story in Electronics Weekly's edition of November 2^nd 1960 carried the above headline.

'Here we go again - another week of  hell,' Ed writes in his diary, 'last week, traipsing round Europe and the Middle East doing 21 presentations in five days in eight cities; now it's the same thing all over again in America with 40 presentations in ten days before going over to Shanghai. and Tokyo'

The noises coming out of reporting CEOs recently have not been optimistic. Some have taken this to mean that the 30% + surge in the semi market this year is to be followed by hard times. But it would be premature to draw such a conclusion.