Electronic Business articles from October 2005

Electronic Business archives from October 2005

Global transformation: the world becomes more complex as electronics companies embrace globalization.(Editor's Note)(Editorial)
October 1, 2005... When the "It's a Small World" ride opened at Disneyland, in 1966, it's highly unlikely that its creators were thinking that the new attraction would foreshadow the development of the electronics industry. At the time, the electronics business...

New York, New York.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2005... Concerning "Silicon Valley East?" (August 2005, page 12), there is no question that Hewlett-Packard was a great pioneer in the electronics industry; it offered nearly 100 different measuring instruments in 1948, the year that the invention of...

Rank and file.(Letters)(Letter to the Editor)
October 1, 2005... After reviewing "The EB 300" (August 2005, page 40), I feel compelled to ask for clarification regarding the figures used to rank Advanced Semiconductor Engineering (ASE Group). We are ranked No. 266 on the list, with revenues of $1.35 billion....

Oops.(Letters)(Correction Notice)
October 1, 2005... Several sharp-eyed readers pointed out that in September's "Top Contract Manufacturers" table, our column heading for revenue listed the year 2002 instead of the year 2004. One even asked gently if we had more recent data. The column heading...

Oops again.(Letters)(Correction Notice)
October 1, 2005... In the EB 300 list, Reed Research Group accidentally moved a decimal point in the wrong direction for Universal Scientific Industrial, instead of being No. 29 on the list, it should be at No. 261. Our apologies for the error. (Why don't these...

Ingredients for successful leadership: it's not enough to be smart; leaders must also be wise.(Commentary)
October 1, 2005... Recently at a cocktail party I met the CEO of a semiconductor equipment manufacturer. My being a native of Italy and his being French triggered a nice conversation, in English, about the joys of having international roots. After I bragged...

Out of the lab and into the market: universities and businesses struggle with technology transfer issues.(RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT)
October 1, 2005... How much technology is languishing in university laboratories, waiting to see the light of day? That's impossible to determine, but a growing number of businesses and academic institutions think that too much innovation is going untapped and...

Hurricane blows away sales: Katrina threatens expected near-term electronics sales.(ECONOMIC OUTLOOK)
October 1, 2005... As of this writing, New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Coast are still in a state of shock after category-4 Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent slow federal response wreaked havoc across the area. With all due respect to those whose lives...

Fairchild's new CEO aims to revive profits: strategy includes tighter inventory, outsourced manufacturing.(PROFILE)
October 1, 2005... Fairchild Semiconductor, which has been struggling to slim down its inventory and bulk up its profit margins, has a new CEO and a new plan for fiscal fitness. Mark Thompson, who took over in May 2005 from longtime CEO Kirk Pond, has...

Solid-state lighting shakeout: LED manufacturers retrench.(MARKETS)
October 1, 2005... One of the chief benefits of LEDs, more generally known as solid-state lighting, is that they last a very long time--in some cases, orders of magnitude longer than incandescent or fluorescent devices. Eventually though, everything fades, and...

A case for continuous sales and operations planning.(Response Management)(classic sales and operations planning)(Advertisement)
October 1, 2005... Classic sales and operations planning (S&OP) is typically defined as a process that coalesces projections for all areas of a business--customers, sales, marketing, development, manufacturing, sourcing, and financial--into one integrated set of...

WIPO sees patent proliferation: it's never been more critical to ensure that your IP is protected.(INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY)(World Intellectual Property Organization)
October 1, 2005... Electronics companies, not surprisingly, are becoming increasingly prolific patent fliers in their quest to safeguard their intellectual property (IP). In 2004 the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), headquartered in Geneva,...

Lifetime extended for voice networks: new telecom chips solve carriers' packet woes.(Semiconductors)
October 1, 2005... Since the Internet took off, in the early 1990s, telecom carriers' biggest problem has been how to efficiently transmit packetized data over their existing voice networks. Data's proportion of network traffic is increasing, so that's where the...

The coming photonic revolution: is the fate of copper interconnect sealed?(OPTOELECTRONICS)
October 1, 2005... If they remade The Graduate today, the buzzword tossed at Benjamin Braddock wouldn't be "plastics" but rather "photonics"--the use of light, rather than electricity, for transmission of data. The use of photons over electrons is what lets...

Pricing fix: will its new announcements make Cadence the "Intel" of EDA?(Electronic Design Automation)(Cadence Design Systems Inc.)
October 1, 2005... On September 12, Cadence Design Systems made what the company's PR folks were characterizing as "a major announcement in three parts." The first two parts were new product offerings, and the third part (a pricing change) seemed almost like an...

Asserting supply chain control: OEMs may take strategic sourcing back from EMS companies.(Supply Chain Management)
October 1, 2005... For years OEMs have outsourced more and more supply chain responsibilities to their electronics manufacturing services (EMS) partners. Now a contrary ripple is emerging: Analysts say some OEMs are taking back a portion of the strategic sourcing...

Is DFM working? The rules of the game are changing--literally.(Capital Equipment)(Interview)
October 1, 2005... Electronic News' Ed Sperling sat down recently to discuss the reality of design for manufacturing with John Madok, director of new business development at Applied Materials; Mark Miller, VP of business development at Cadence Design Systems; and...

The road to convergence is still blocked: but does a lack of trust represent a business opportunity?(Consumer Electronics)
October 1, 2005... If I had even a fraction of the billions of dollars spent in fruitless pursuit of convergence--the integration of home computers and broadcasting devices--I'd be filing this story from Bora gora. And yet, the drone of convergence just won't...

Handsets reach a crossroads: the mobile handset is changing, but industry players are pulling evolution in different directions.(CONSUMER ELECTRONICS)(Cover Story)
October 1, 2005... It lets users take and view photos and videos, listen to music, watch TV, retrieve and send e-mail, surf the Web, find real-world places, play games--and even make and take phone calls. In short, it seems as if the handset is on the verge of...

Are you ready for RoHs? Reliable, observant, helpful, and straightforward compliant solutions from TI.(RACE TO RoHS: FROM TI STANDARD LINEAR AND LOGIC)(Advertisement)
October 1, 2005... Will you be ready when the European Parliament's directive on the restriction of hazardous substances (RoHS) kicks in in July 2006? The directive mandates that electronic devices sold in the EU after that date be certifiably free of lead and...

Figuring out configurability: even as configurable processors gain ground, each company's territory remains fuzzy.(SEMICONDUCTORS)
October 1, 2005... Until 18 months ago, the most visible high point for configurable processors (CPs) was in 1996. In that year, Nintendo licensed a configurable IP core developed in 1993 by ARC International. The core became a graphics accelerator for Super...

Think locally manage globally: is managing an electronics company any different after 50 years of globalization?(GLOBALIZATION)
October 1, 2005... "The product is going to be designed in Munich; fabbed in Greenock; assembled in Malacca; warehoused in Singapore; and then deployed to the customer." The jumble of distant cities and countries--Germany, Scotland, Malaysia--pours out...

The strategic art of international site selection: as the electronics business expands, finding the right sites for facilities gets more competitive.(FACILITIES)(Nano-Tech Silicon India's wafer fabrication plant )
October 1, 2005... It is one of the biggest electronics manufacturing projects announced in recent years, and it may be one of the most significant. In late June, Nano-Tech Silicon India, a chip startup company backed by South Korean entrepreneur P. June Min,...

Global sourcing: getting there from here: electronics companies face the next set of supply chain challenges.(population explosion the main challenge)
October 1, 2005... The electronics supply chain has already weathered its share of global challenges: earthquakes (Taiwan, 1999), Y2K (everywhere, 2000), the SARS outbreak (China, 2002) and terrorist attacks (everywhere, 2001 to the present). In fact, senior...