Author Archives: paulmcl

ARM, Atom, PowerPC

Posted on March 28, 2009 by paulmcl

What is a MID? It’s a Mobile Internet Device also known as a netbook. A huge battle is brewing as to whether a MID is more like a smartphone or more like a PC. It has major implications in the … Continue reading →

Posted in semiconductor | Comments Off

EDP Monterey

Posted on March 27, 2009 by paulmcl

The Electronic Design Process (EDP) conference takes place on April 9-10th in Monterey. Register by 31st if you don’t want to get dinged for the expensive rate. I’m giving the keynote at the dinner the night of 9th April so … Continue reading →

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Designer plague

Posted on March 27, 2009 by paulmcl

Unfortunately semiconductor is not the only thing that has some level of exponentiality going in its favor. For some areas this is a good thing: the human genome project spent 3 billion dollars to sequence the first genome (back when … Continue reading →

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Crushing fixed costs

Posted on March 26, 2009 by paulmcl

There is a trend that the current downturn is only going to accelerate: to turn fixed costs into variable costs. Often this is what is behind outsourcing of some capability. Sometimes it is driven purely by either cost (let’s do … Continue reading →

Posted in finance, investment | Comments Off

Crossing the chasm

Posted on March 25, 2009 by paulmcl

The most influential book on hi-tech marketing of the last twenty years or so has to be Geoffrey Moore’s Crossing the Chasm. I doubt that there is anyone in marketing reading this blog who has not read it. In fact … Continue reading →

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Guest blog: Paul Slaby

Posted on March 24, 2009 by paulmcl

Paul Slaby is CEO of Kaben Wireless Silicon. He spoke at the annual D&R conference in Grenoble last December about whether or not the semiconductor industry will (should?) restructure itself along the lines of the pharmaceutical industry, with large distribution … Continue reading →

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Lady Windemere’s FAM

Posted on March 23, 2009 by paulmcl

In Lady Windemere’s Fan, Oscar Wilde wrote that a cynic is someone who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing. EDA companies are a bit like that. They only know the price of their tools. How much … Continue reading →

Posted in eda industry, marketing | Comments Off

It’s like football only with bondage

Posted on March 20, 2009 by paulmcl

Woodrow Wilson once said “If I am to speak ten minutes, I need a week for preparation; if an hour, I am ready now.” Being succinct is really important when trying to close some sort of deal, whether it is … Continue reading →

Posted in investment, presentations | Comments Off

Semi equipment vs EDA

Posted on March 19, 2009 by paulmcl

I had lunch with Lance Glasser a couple of weeks ago. He used to run about half of KLA-Tencor’s semiconductor equipment business (and I did some consulting for him back then). We got to discussing why EDA and semiconductor equipment … Continue reading →

Posted in eda industry, marketing, sales, semiconductor | Comments Off

Standards

Posted on March 18, 2009 by paulmcl

I was once at a standardization meeting many years ago when a friend of mine leaned over and said, “I tend to be against standards, they just perpetuate other people’s mistakes.” I think this is really a criticism of standardizing … Continue reading →

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