Memo To New AMD CEO: Time For A Breakout Strategy!

Memo To New AMD CEO: Time For A Breakout Strategy!
by Ed McKernan on 09-12-2011 at 2:52 pm

“Where’s the Taurus?” In the history of company turnarounds, it was one of the most penetrating and catalyzing opening questions ever offered by a new CEO to a demoralized executive team. The CEO was Alan Mullaly, who spent years at Boeing and at one point in the 1980s studied the successful rollout of the original Ford Taurus. For… Read More


I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family…

I love you, you love me, we’re a happy family…
by Paul McLellan on 08-31-2011 at 8:00 pm

The CEO panel at the 2nd GTC wasn’t especially enlightening. The theme was that going forward will require cooperation for success and everyone was really ready to cooperate.

The most interesting concept was Aart talking about moving from what he called “scale complexity” aka Moore’s law to what he … Read More


Will AMD and Samsung Battle Intel and Micron?

Will AMD and Samsung Battle Intel and Micron?
by Ed McKernan on 08-26-2011 at 2:00 pm

We received some good feedback from our article on Intel’s Back to the Future Buy of Micron and I thought I would present another story line that gives readers a better perspective of what may be possibly coming down the road. In this case, it is the story of AMD and Samsung partnering to counter Intel’s platform play with Micron. The… Read More


Intel’s Back to the Future Buy of Micron

Intel’s Back to the Future Buy of Micron
by Ed McKernan on 08-19-2011 at 5:14 am


In an interview that Gordon Moore gave in early 2000, the former co-founder of Intel recounted how they abandoned the DRAM market in the early 1980s in order to exit the increasingly unprofitable business and focus on the promising, yet still young x86 processor market. Intel was also home to EEPROM and NOR Flash, two memory technologies… Read More


Mr. TTL’s Future is Analog: Time to Sell OMAP to Broadcom

Mr. TTL’s Future is Analog: Time to Sell OMAP to Broadcom
by Ed McKernan on 08-17-2011 at 1:00 am

Mr. TTL (otherwise known as Texas Instruments or TI) has had a great run in the cellular market but it is time to decamp. The future is Analog and OMAP must depart to one of the remaining players looking to win the Smartphone and Tablet market. TI is exiting the market so it can focus on the high volume analog market.

On first sight, the … Read More


Captain Ahab Calls Out for the Merger of nVidia and AMD

Captain Ahab Calls Out for the Merger of nVidia and AMD
by Ed McKernan on 08-16-2011 at 8:00 pm

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago –in the mid 1990s – having little or no money in my purse and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail the startup ship Cyrix and see the watery part of the PC world. Whenever I find myself grim about the mouth or pause before coffin warehouses, and bring up the rear of every funeral… Read More


Will AMD Crash Intel’s $300M Ultrabook Party?

Will AMD Crash Intel’s $300M Ultrabook Party?
by Ed McKernan on 08-14-2011 at 7:00 am

Let’s face it, the ships are burning in the harbor and there is only one way out of here for AMD. It needs to crash Intel’s exclusive $300M Ultrabook Party in order to grab a slice of the future, more profitable PC market.

Intel Capital Creates $300 Million Ultrabook FundRead More


nVidia: "30 Days From Going Out of Business"

nVidia: "30 Days From Going Out of Business"
by Ed McKernan on 08-11-2011 at 9:36 pm

Jen Hsun Huang, the CEO of nVidia, has a phrase he often repeats to his employees: “We are 30 days from going out of business.” With product cycles as short as 6 months, the troops are on a constant march to revenue. The earnings conference call on August 11th highlighted two critical pieces of information. First, is the success that… Read More


Smartphones shipments, Sky is the limit…

Smartphones shipments, Sky is the limit…
by Eric Esteve on 08-08-2011 at 8:50 am

…or a global recession, but that’s not the purpose of this blog. As everybody knows, Apple is designing and selling smartphones, only. Does it mean that only smartphones are generating profit in the mobile industry? As we have seen recently in Semiwiki, Apple makes 2/3 of profit of entire mobile industry.

Let’s have a look (below)… Read More


MCU Performance Customers: The Cavalry is Coming Over The Hill

MCU Performance Customers: The Cavalry is Coming Over The Hill
by Ed McKernan on 07-31-2011 at 7:30 pm

cavalry lg

The under the radar, sleepy microcontroller market is about to undergo a rapid transformation the next several years with new entrants and the rise of 32 bit cores that will redefine the parameters for success. This will revive growth and result in new winners and losers. But lots of questions remain.

My first job out of college in… Read More