Author's Latest Posts


CSR In Semis


For decades the largest industries in the world have deployed corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives that, on their surface, are designed to “give back” or “share the wealth” with the communities that have produced the labor force that drive their collective success. We also are told that CSR is good business and can be correlated with improved branding and greater profitabil... » read more

Turning Chaos Into Order


By Jack Harding It would be unthinkable to begin this article without recognition of the disaster the Japanese people are enduring, even as this is written. My friends and colleagues are as safe as they can be, so far; thousands are lost. But it takes no imagination to appreciate the psychological and very real overhang of nuclear toxins changing a society for a decade. The sad irony of the... » read more

Just Kidding


By Jack Harding I can remember back to 1995 and the first time I heard Joe Costello at Cadence speak publicly about the “disaggregation of the supply chain.” Disaggregation? Was that even a word in Webster’s Dictionary? It didn’t matter because, like many other concepts championed by Joe, it was the word every journalist and analyst in the semiconductor space was using to describe t... » read more

Don’t Leave Money On The Table


By Jack Harding The vast majority of private fabless semiconductor companies are venture funded and, rationally, anticipate an exit through acquisition. The statistics around achieving an exit via an IPO are daunting, at best. But, as we have all read, the valuations are much lower than they once were. One of the reasons is the recent valuations of the acquirers are lower. But there is ano... » read more

Synopsys Plus Virage: Combinatorics Or Common Sense?


By Jack Harding It should be no surprise. The industry has been consolidating and expanding and consolidating for nearly 40 years. So when Virage Logic was gobbled up by Synopsys and Denali was ingested by Cadence, it is really a lot more of the same. Or is it? There is a difference. Synopsys has made it crystal clear that its definition of EDA now permanently includes IP. Not that acquirin... » read more

Getting To Market Faster


By Jack Harding IP reusability has been a drumbeat in the semiconductor industry for a dozen years or more. The thesis is simple: Why build again what you already have? And with most durable, simple statements, the foundation is profundity. The basic need has yielded breakthrough innovation from IP companies large and small. EDA methodologies to “assemble” blocks from pre-existing inven... » read more

5 Reasons You Can’t Do It Yourself


By Jack Harding With the recent Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) Board of Directors vote to create a new category of semiconductor company, the value chain producer’s contribution to the overall industry has been formalized and made permanent. This should come as no surprise. The VCP market segment is closing in on $1 billion in annual sales. The category has evolved from a conceptua... » read more

Purging Inefficiency


By Jack Harding The Value Chain Producer (VCP) segment of the semiconductor industry was recently formalized by the GSA. This is particularly good news for the fabless world, which can benefit from a business model designed to increase quality, efficiencies and access to technology. Quality is addressed by a VCP through a variety of means, but it all stems from the aggregation of skill se... » read more

The GSA’s Big Opportunity


By Jack Harding The Global Semiconductor Alliance, the GSA, is at the front lines of a great opportunity. As the semiconductor industry has become a 24-hour-per-day, seven-day-per-week flywheel of activity and innovation, there is only one organization in the world poised to keep pace. It was no stray coincidence that precipitated the renaming of the Fabless Semiconductor Association, the... » read more

Coming Of Age


By Jack Harding I recently participated in a panel hosted by TSMC.  The other panelists represented EDA, IP and Foundry market segments. We were asked to comment on new business models as a means to facilitate more design-starts in companies large and small and, otherwise, make it easier to be in this business with increasing NREs and greater complexity. To my delight the EDA guy talked... » read more

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