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March 9, 2007

Wrong sort of engineer.

It's nice to know you're not alone in incompetence when dealing with life's dilemmas, and foreign hotels rooms, with their multiplicity of unfamiliar switches and plugs, can absorb an awful lot of time in trying to understand how to work the appliances.

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May 25, 2007

What Is Going On?

Is the semiconductor industry consolidating or de-consolidating? It seems you can take pretty much either view.

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October 12, 2007

Why Are There Fewer Chip Start-Up Successes?

Rahul Sud, former Inmos SRAM designer and founding CEO of Lattice Semiconductor, asked one of his fiendishly unanswerable questions at the panel session at Future Horizons' System and SOC Conference in Prague yesterday.

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October 17, 2007

Giving Wall Street The Finger

Linear Technology Corporation (LTC) is sticking to its guns of pursuing steady, profitable growth despite the blandishments of Wall Street to go for a high growth strategy.

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February 12, 2008

Did ARM Make A Bog Buying Artisan?

In 2004, ARM paid nearly a billion dollars for the physical IP company Artisan. Many people said at the time that ARM had overpaid for a company with revenues of $82m.

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Angel Spend Grows, But UK Tech Still Below £1bn

Sometimes, something comes along which shows you just how awful the tech collapse of 2001 was.

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February 14, 2008

'We Haven't Got A Clue What We're Doing', says CEO

The semiconductor industry is as anarchic, unpredictable and volatile as it ever was, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future, Malcolm Penn, CEO of Future Horizons, told the recent IFS2008

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March 7, 2008

The Fly In The Intel Boardroom

The ears of the proverbial fly on the wall of the Intel boardroom in Santa Clara are burning.

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April 10, 2008

In Trouble or Spinning?

Periodically the semiconductor industry likes to beat itself up and pronounce its inadequacies, but there are usually self-serving reasons for it.

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May 15, 2008

Apologies

Apologies for rather erratic posting over the last few days due to a move to a new version of the posting software.

The software appears to be stable and understandable and, hopefully, the normal schedule of  7am and 3pm posts will be resumed.

May 16, 2008

Infineon Execs Can't Let Go

With Qimonda causing Infineon so much grief, why hasn't Infineon got rid of it yet? The question was asked at this week's IET/GSA (Institution of Engineering and Technology/Global Semiconductor Alliance) International Semiconductor Forum at the ExCel conference centre in East London.

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September 29, 2008

Should I Buy Spansion's Shares?

After so many years of being exposed to the chronically loss-making NOR flash market, Spansion's shares are a very affordable $2 apiece.


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October 24, 2008

Linear Tech's Decision As Ballsy As Intel Dropping DRAM

Was Linear Technology's decision to phase out its involvement in the cellphone and consumer markets when those markets accounted for a third of its revenues as ballsy a play as Intel's decision to get out of DRAM when DRAM accounted for 75 per cent of Intel's business? Probably Yes.

 

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December 5, 2008

Infineon Needs A Sucker

If Dr Wolfgang Ziebart was the kind of guy to indulge in schadenfreude, which I don't for one moment think he is, he would be feeling that he's well out of Infineon whose shares dropped to 1 euro yesterday.

 

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January 15, 2009

Miserable Saga Of Rambus Drags On

The miserable saga of Rambus drags on as the company makes an enemy of a Delaware judge by destroying relevant evidence.

 

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March 30, 2009

The EU's Microelectronics Dilemma

SEMI, the trade body for the semiconductor production equipment industry, is running a campaign to get the EC to support the microelectronics industry in Europe. Last Friday, SEMI arranged for a visit of EU Glitterati to IMEC.

 

 

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April 17, 2009

Slower Than The Mating Of Tortoises.

Q: What's slower than the mating of tortoises? A: The consolidation of the Japanese semiconductor sector.

 

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May 12, 2009

Japan At Sea On Red Ink And Retrenchment

Japan seems to be sailing through such a sea of red ink and cost-cutting that it is endangering its capacity to operate effectively at the technological leading edge.

 

 

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September 7, 2009

The No-Growth Decade

If you want to put in your diary a sobering thought for January 1st 2010 (a day when a sobering thought can be useful) it is this:

 

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October 2, 2009

What's The Answer To The Chip Industry's Problems? Asks IEF

So what's the way out of the semiconductor industry's problems? Finding renewed growth and better profitability was very much on the agenda at the opening day of the Future Horizons' International Electronic Forum 2009 in Geneva yesterday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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October 12, 2009

Why Are The Swiss So Miserable?

I make a point, during last week's five day stay in Switzerland for IEF 2009 (+ R&R), to say a hearty "Bon Jour" to every Swiss I meet, because they look so miserable, and I assume that a smile and a greeting will cheer them up.

 

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October 26, 2009

Giving The Finger To Wall Street

Trotting round Silicon Valley last week, one of the nice things was that everyone has a similar view on Wall Street: It stinks. Some companies have stopped giving quarterly earnings guidance to Wall Street analysts and have replaced it with an annual outlook.

 

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November 2, 2009

Giving The Finger To Wall Street (Update 2)

Last week's pair of 'Giving the Finger To Wall Street' posts here and here discussed how Wall Street pressures CEOs into harmful lay-offs and profitless growth. Now, it seems, Wall Street has another harmful effect on semiconductor companies: it pressures them into foregoing long-term R&D. 

 

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November 20, 2009

Giving The Finger To Wall Street (Update 3)

The stand-off between Wall Street and the semiconductor industry represented by Wall Street deciding the IC business is low-growth and its shares low-value, and the IC industry's belief that it is poorly served, poorly advised and under-valued by Wall Street, is a recent phenomenon.

 

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January 4, 2010

Intel's Love-In With Washington Goes Cold

Intel's love affair with the new US administration seems to have petered out. Shortly after President Obama was inaugurated, Intel CEO Paul Otellini went to Washington to announce a plan to invest $7 billion in US-based fabs.

 

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January 28, 2010

UK Innovation Investment Fund Is 'Wrong-Headed' Says Top VC.

Less is more in the VC world, says a prominent early-stage VC, while a shrinking capital pool should produce better quality investments.

 

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