February 2011 Archives

'Bloody CTOs. Why do I always have trouble with CTOs?' Ed writes in his diary, 'first my soon-to-be ex-wife shimmies off with Pat Cook, my ex-CTO,  now my new CTO is threatening to resign - simply because I told him to cut the R&D budget in half.'

The dark side of the English psyche was exposed by the country's treatment of Alan Turing.

Several successful companies, including ARM, Element 14 and Virata, spun out of Acorn Computers which developed the BBC Micro in the 1970s.

For a decade, the CEO's job at Zarlink, the old Mitel Semiconductor, has been a minuet with two players - Pat Brocket and Kirk Mandy. Mandy who announced his resignation yesterday.

There was once a company which replicated in five chips the functions of 63 chips inside an IBM computer.

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Be careful buying a computer from PC World. I ordered one the Thursday before last - needing it for a trip abroad last Friday.

If you want to cause trouble in the Old Folks Home you drop your dinner on the floor or switch the communal TV to Red Hot Dutch.

 Thanks to Top500 for this one - the ten most powerful computers on the planet:

CSR takes over Zoran and says it is now a top ten fabless company.

'Come Into Semiconductors The Future's Fine!'

50 years ago today, this was the headline on an advertisement in Electronics Weekly's edition of February 22^nd 1961.

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It's your comments, not the posts, which contribute most of the interest in the site, so I hope you'll continue to make them. 

I expect to move to a new template which allows commenters to be tagged 'trusted' meaning their comments will go up automatically. This should eliminate the problem.

'No more Mr Nice Guy', writes Ed in his diary, 'that's my resolution for this new job I start tomorrow. Last time out I was too soft. I let that asshole Pat Cook stay far too long as CTO - and now he's off with my ex in the Maldives with half my share of the IPO money, half the value of my house, buying cocktails with  the money I pay the old bitch for maintenance. Well, once bitten, twice shy."

ARM's commitment to its partners is one of the strongest shots in its locker. That strength of commitment was established early in the company's history by its founding CEO, Sir Robin Saxby.

33 years ago there was a gifted memory design team who got poached, then re-poached, and eventually set up as a separate company by a friend of  the team leader whose father was a billionaire who had made his money supplying chips to McDonalds.

The top ten spenders on ICs in 2010 were:

The last time I reported that NXP had failed to grow in a 30%+ industry growth year, I was told that the proper comparison should have been between Q3 2009 (a very bad quarter for the industry) and Q3 2010 (a very good quarter).

'Things went with a swing today when Texas Instruments transferred to their new factory at Manton Lane, Bedford.'

So, 51 years ago today, starts a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of February 15^th 1961

 Ed's diaries will return next week, February 21st, in the usual Monday afternoon slot.

If ever there was a cautionary tale it is the story of Freescale. Private equity firm Blackstone bought  Freescale in 2006 for $17.6 billion.

Now that Microsoft has joined the Nokia-Intel nexus, what kind of super-phone can we expect?

How much time is wasted in your company doing useless tasks? A salutary yarn is told in the PriceWaterhouseCoopers book 'Five Frogs On A Log '.

You've sent in some cracking entries to the 'Others' slot to last Monday morning's Poll on 'What's The Surest Sign The CEO Is Cracking Up?' Here are some of the best for which we are very grateful to all those who sent them in.

It's been a long time coming. China's been trying vainly for 30 years to spawn an indigenous IC capability. Last year may have been the turning point.

Poor old Goldman Sachs - there they were sitting around Wall Street innocently minding their own business - in this case pumping up an asset bubble around social networking sites to make a speculative killing on Facebook - and along comes some absolute rotter who pours merde all over their cunning plan.

There two professions you never see on the TV - engineers and investment bankers.

'Are Scientists Fit To Lead?'

This was the headline, 50 years ago today, of a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of February 8^th 1961.

Who has the strongest patent position in LTE?

That hoary old chestnut, a possible takeover of ARM, is up on the billboards again.

It's debatable whether the current situation in the semiconductor industry has come about because of extreme cunning, or because of extreme timidity.

Thanks to VLSI Research for this one - the top ten semiconductor manufacturing equipment suppliers for 2010:

Is the DRAM slump over? Speculative buying in advance of the Chinese New Year has pushed the DRAM spot price sharply higher. 

'Both the military and non-military space programmes of the United States will be funded more heavily under the new Kennedy administration.'

So, 50 years ago today, ran a story in the February 1^st 1961 edition of Electronics Weekly.