Funding Startups the SK Telecom Way

Funding Startups the SK Telecom Way
by Paul McLellan on 08-15-2013 at 4:15 pm

At the recent GSA Entrepreneurship Forumone of the panelists was Angel Orrantia of Innopartners who are trying a novel approach to funding startups in the semiconductor space and the surrounding ecosystem.

It seems things got started with an innovation center inside SK Hynix. Just in case you have forgotten, Hynix is the newish… Read More


TSMC Q2 Results: Up 17%; 20nm and 16nm on track

TSMC Q2 Results: Up 17%; 20nm and 16nm on track
by Paul McLellan on 07-24-2013 at 10:47 am

TSMC announced their Q2 financial results yesterday. Revenue was $5.2B (at the high end of guidance) with net income of $1.6B. This is up 17.4% on Q1 and up 21.6% year-to-year. Gross margin is up too, at 49% which is up 3.2 points on Q1 and 0.3 points year-to-year. As usual the financial results are not directly that interesting since… Read More


Novati Covers the Periodic Table

Novati Covers the Periodic Table
by Paul McLellan on 07-16-2013 at 4:59 pm

Novati is a semiconductor company that you probably haven’t heard of. It has its roots in Sematech back when Sematech was mainly in Austin rather than New York where it is today. The Sematech fab first became an independent company and then acquired by SVTC and operated under that name for 4 years. Finally, last the investors… Read More


GSA Awards Deadline Looming + GSA Entrepreneurship Conference

GSA Awards Deadline Looming + GSA Entrepreneurship Conference
by Paul McLellan on 07-05-2013 at 5:09 am

GSA has award for various categories that are presented at their annual awards dinner. This year’s dinner will be on Thursday December 12th at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

Some of the awards have now passed their cutoff date. But a few remain open until July 12th (hurry, just one more week):

  • Startup to Watch Award
  • Most
Read More

Dan Niles: Everything Changed on May 22nd

Dan Niles: Everything Changed on May 22nd
by Paul McLellan on 06-26-2013 at 11:09 pm

I listened to Dan Niles’s quarterly report that he does for GSA. He had a lot of the usual background data on savings rates and GDP growth, but the big story is that everything changed on May 22nd and that this will turn out to be a very significant moment. That was the day that the Fed basically announced that it would start to “taper”… Read More


GSA Entrepreneurship Conference

GSA Entrepreneurship Conference
by Paul McLellan on 06-10-2013 at 12:04 am

GSA’s next event is the annual Entrepreneurship Conference to be held at the Computer History Museum on July 18th. The event runs from 3pm to 8pm. Attendance is free but you must register here.

The event consists of 5 panel sessions followed by a reception. The full roster of who will be on each panel is not completely finalized… Read More


GSA Awards…Nominate!

GSA Awards…Nominate!
by Paul McLellan on 05-08-2013 at 4:50 pm

For 19 years GSA (presumably going back to the days when it was Fabless Semiconductor Association, FSA) has recognized public and private semiconductor companies. The awards are celebrated at a dinner. This year’s dinner is on Thursday December 12th at the Santa Clara Convention Center. The keynote speaker at the dinner… Read More


The Capital Lite Semiconductor Model

The Capital Lite Semiconductor Model
by Paul McLellan on 05-07-2013 at 8:05 pm

For a couple of years the GSA has had working group looking at funding of semiconductor investment. There is a general feeling, which I share, that it is hard to get a fabless semiconductor company off the ground (nobody would dream of trying to create one with a fab these days) due to the size of the investment and the relatively long… Read More


GSA European Executive Forum

GSA European Executive Forum
by Paul McLellan on 04-27-2013 at 9:58 am

The first week of June is DAC in Austin of course. But over in Europe, the Wednesday and Thursday of that week, June 5-6th is the GSA European Executive Forum, bringing C-level executives together from all over Europe. It actually runs from 2pm on Wednesday until about 2pm on Thursday including a VIP dinner on Wednesday evening sponsored… Read More