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Minitel Shuts Down

Minitel Shuts Down
by Paul McLellan on 07-05-2012 at 5:02 pm

When I first came to the US, one project that we had going on at VLSI Technology was an ASIC design being done by a French company called Telic. The chip would go into something called “Minitel” which the France Telecom (actually still the PTT since post and telecomunications had not yet been separated) planned to supply… Read More


Crushed Blackberry

Crushed Blackberry
by Paul McLellan on 07-02-2012 at 12:00 am

I wasn’t going to write about the cell phone business again for some time. After all, this is a site about semiconductor and EDA primarily. But the cell-phone business in all its facets is a huge semiconductor consumer and continues to grow fast (despite my morbid focus on those companies that do anything but).

But Research… Read More


The Scariest Graph I’ve Seen Recently

The Scariest Graph I’ve Seen Recently
by Paul McLellan on 07-01-2012 at 4:00 pm

Everyone knows Moore’s Law: the number of transistors on a chip doubles every couple of years. We can take the process roadmap for Intel, TSMC or GF and pretty much see what the densities we will get will be when 20/22nm, 14nm and 10nm arrive. Yes the numbers are on track.

But I have always pointed out that this is not what drives… Read More


Microsoft Messes Up Mobile Even More…and Already Went Thermonuclear

Microsoft Messes Up Mobile Even More…and Already Went Thermonuclear
by Paul McLellan on 06-25-2012 at 11:01 pm

Ed wrote recently about Microsoft going thermonuclear. I think that they already did. Ed wrote about Microsoft’s tablet announcement. The second announcement is a sort of follow up to my blog on what will happen to Nokia.

Two big announcements, the first one is that Microsoft is going to produce its own tablet computers (MiPads … Read More


Off topic: Matt

Off topic: Matt
by Paul McLellan on 06-20-2012 at 8:12 pm

This has pretty much nothing to do with EDA or semiconductor. OK, absolutely nothing. Years ago a friend pointed me at a video of a guy who used to be a video game designer (wait, a semiconductor connection) who decided to take his savings and travel the world. As he put it, “I wasn’t a very good video game designer. But I … Read More


What Will Happen to Nokia?

What Will Happen to Nokia?
by Paul McLellan on 06-15-2012 at 3:06 pm

News today is that Moody’s has downgraded Nokia to junk status. They also announced that they will lay off 10,000 people (including about 1 in 4 of the people they employ in Finland, where Nokia is headquartered).

For those of you who don’t know all the inside-baseball stuff about Nokia, here is a recent little history.… Read More


Apple Will Build In America

Apple Will Build In America
by Ed McKernan on 05-31-2012 at 8:10 pm

As Apple races towards $200B in revenue, sometime in 2013 and perhaps $300B by 2015, Tim Cook knows it is in Apple’s best interests to start building a sizeable percentage of iPhones and iPADs in the US and soon. At the All Things D conference this week, Walt Mossberg asked Cook about Apple’s manufacturing presence in China and “if … Read More


Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends

Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends
by Paul McLellan on 05-30-2012 at 7:11 pm

Every year or so Mary Meeker (at Kleiner-Perkins) does a big presentation on internet trends. Since the internet in general and mobile in particular is a big driver for the semiconductor industry, this report is a treasure trove of useful data and interesting facts.

For example, this graph shows the adoption rate of iPods, iPhones… Read More


Why does AT&T Fear OTT?

Why does AT&T Fear OTT?
by Paul McLellan on 05-29-2012 at 9:00 pm

OTT stands for “over the top”. But in the telecom sense it does not mean outrageous, it means providing a service using the data network that competes with some service that the carrier offers and uses as a revenue stream. The most obvious of these is running Skype and so not making a voice call but perhaps the biggest threat… Read More