July 2011 Archives

STMicroelectronics was formed out of two sick companies - Thomson of France and SGS of Italy. The first CEO of the combined group was Pasquale Pistorio.

Interdigital, the patent troll which may become the subject of an Apple-Google bidding war, is looking for a bonza bonanza.

Once upon a time, as long ago as 1988, there were six Japanese chip companies in the world top ten.

Since its birth in 2008, ST-Ericsson has been a profligate child, landing its parents with a $445 million debt set to grow to $900 million by the end of the year.

Those whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad, said Euripides, though the authorship is disputed, and it could have been said by a wireless industry analyst observing that RIM is following Nokia into doolally-land.

ARM seems unfazed by Intel's intended move, later this year, to production on 22nm finfet-based process technology.

50 years ago, this was a headline in Electronics Weekly's edition of March 7^th 1961.

'The press have been writing stories about some of the efficiency measures we've been considering,' Ed confides to his diary, 'some of these leaks can only have come from the board, so I've got a private detective agency to put a tap on the directors' phones - all of them - work, home and mobile. Now we'll found out who the rat is.'

We're told we're humungeously in debt. Well it may not be all that bad.

Intel has a two year lead in process technology over the rest of the semiconductor industry and could get further ahead if yields are satisfactory on its finfet-based 22nm process due for introduction later this year, said Mike Bryant, CTO of Future Horizons, at last week's IFS 2011.

There was once a founder and CEO of a chip company who had style.

Scott Fitzgerald was wrong - there are second acts in American lives and Steve Jobs is the proof of it.

Moore's Law has always been a cliff-hanger. Even Gordon Moore says he has never been able to see more than two generations ahead.

Thanks to iSuppli for this one - the ten expected biggest spenders on semiconductors in 2011.

Being declared worse than Belgium is always a good way of getting the nation's attention, and that rather good egg Lord Digby Jones, former Trade Minister and CBI boss, says today that we're spending less than Belgium on R&D as a percentage of GDP.

This was the headline, 50 years ago, in Electronics Weekly's edition of February 8 1961.

'At the General Managers' meeting today, it seems a number of them are suffering the same problem,' Ed confides to his diary, 'they can't get projects completed, which means new products aren't getting out the door and making money. 80% of our revenue comes from new products.'

It looks as if the first demonstration tools for 450mm will be put in place next year at The College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (CNSE) in Albany, New York, which is leading and co-ordinating US microelectronics research into progress down the Moore's Law trail.

Will there be a tipping point at which chip companies and governments rush to build the first 450mm fab?

There was once a chip company founded by the most famous man, at the time, in the computer industry.

Old memory technologies are reluctant to die. Last week, IBM announced advances in 40 year-old phase change memory; this week, Toshiba and Hynix announce another push on 20 year-old MRAM.

 Thanks to iSuppli for this one - the top eight DRAM suppliers in Q1 2011:

In all my born days I've never seen a scandal which involved, simultaneously, Parliament, Government, Judiciary, Police and Press.

'At the Physical Society Exhibition1961 epitaxial transistors were shown not only by STC but also by Texas Instruments.'

So starts a story, 50 years ago, in Electronics Weekly's issue of February 1^st 1961.

'A major opportunity has come up', writes Ed in his diary, 'the owner of our best competitor in a very lucrative market serving the renewable energy industry, has had a sudden heart attack and died and it looks as if the  widow may  sell. The company has better technology than us and has over 50% of this market - we have around 40% - so, if we can buy it, we'll own their technology and the market and can ratchet up prices.'

Have earthquakes and credit crunches changed the industry's thinking on inventory levels? Did the chip shortages last year, which affected the automotive, telecoms and consumer industries, put the wind up the supply chain? Is the industry looking to maintain permanently higher levels of inventory?

Once upon at time there was a company which thought up a spiffing marketing wheeze: 'Let's get customers to use our logo in their advertising'.  If customers did this, the company would contribute to the cost of the ads.

Banned in Sussex - Accolade or Badge of Shame? A reader sent me this intriguing account of how Her Majesty's Constabulary in Sussex have banned Mannerisms.

Further redundancies at ST-Ericsson will have the effect of "permanently compromising its viability" according to the French equivalent of the TUC - UNSA (National Union of Autonomous Workers).

Well here we are - the List of Shame. According to the magazine Private Equity International these are the ten biggest private equity funds in the world:

Sitting next to an Oxford don at dinner last week I'm intrigued when he tells me the Chinese students are now being taught to think - not what to think, but how to think for themselves.

50 years ago, this was the headline in a story in Electronics Weekly's edition of February 1^st 1961.

'The new CTO is getting all het up about fold-up displays,' Ed confides to his diary, 'apparently we've had a team beavering away on this for donkeys' years and they've built up a substantial patent position.  Now they've got something manufacturable.'

The interesting thing about IBM's announcement of a two-bit-per-cell phase change memory last week is that IBM is still pursuing phase change memory.

What a laugh to see social networking site MySpace sold for $35 million by Sky which had bought it for $580 million.