But hey, its stock is 30% up on the year!

https://www.testosteronepit.com/home/...verpriced.html

Wolf is a little bit too polite in his analysis of TI's woes - #1 is crappy strategic thinking.

Cirrus (familiar to us in the audio world as a major ADC/DAC and codec supplier, formerly Crystal Semiconductor) has engineered itself into a tight corner by having over half its sales come from Apple - but its not permitted to mention its largest customer by name due to Apple's draconian NDA.

I wouldn't say things are looking very bright for Cirrus - to be that dependent on one single customer who is that much more powerful than you and a known corporate bully strikes me as poor strategic thinking.

Apple captive Cirrus gagged

Here's an interesting article where Warren East is commenting on ARM's competition with Intel. But for the sting in the tail, scroll down to the comments. The first one appears to be from an Intel insider - fascinating stuff. Let's hope it doesn't get pulled

ARM, TSMC lead Intel in SoC, says CEO East

He (nc3) says :

Intel's 22nm also has much higher leakage, cost, worse analog, worse RF, worse high V transistors in terms of specs and the type of devices offered.

Of late I've been enjoying snacking on this book EDAgraffiti which is a romp through various aspects of the economics of semiconductors. Recommended for those who are interested not just in the technical side of the digital revolution but also the commercial perspective too.

One comment from the book jumped out at me, which was a prediction made by Clayton Christensen a few years ago about the end of Moore's Law. He's reported as saying the following at an engineering conference organised by Cadence. Moore's Law will come to an end when the semiconductor industry tries to deliver more capability than the mainstream requires at a price which is higher than the mainstream wants to pay. 450mm wafer processing technology and EUV lithography pretty much do seem to fit the bill here.

This article on The Inquirer is saying pretty much the same thing - gaming and video transcoding have kept the push for faster PCs alive but even in those applications demand is now...

Could Kodak's demise have been averted? | Technology | The Observer

My best bet for why Kodak is history comes towards the end of this relatively short piece:

More insightful analyses point to the fact that Kodak had a near-monopolistic grip on a market that was giving it a 70% margin on its products and processes, and that therefore the people who ran the film part of the business were the ones who carried most weight in corporate discussions.

On Counterfeit Chips in US Military Hardware bunnie's blog

https://garysmitheda.com/paper/ARM-Techon-note.pdf

Its a single page review of ARM Techcon. At the end I think he means 'PC design' not 'PCB design' as he's written.

He says:

If Intel doesn’t do something soon this might not be much of a war.

He knows some guys at Intel read his analysis so I think he's sugaring the pill. Intel is rather like the hare in the old fable of the tortoise and the hare. The hare woke up and tried to catch up with the tortoise but it was too late. That's exactly where Intel is right now - they've become awake to the issue but they've missed the boat.

How often are you likely to read the words 'Jobs eventually relented' ? Read and weep Intel; Tony Fadell: respect.

Steve Jobs Wanted Intel Chips for the iPad - Digits - WSJ

Is the cloud disruptive?

Here's a cloud website that I consider to have tremendous disruptive potential as technology:

Datasheet Zone & DrawSCH : One stop to find datasheet,IC pinouts and application circuits & Draw schematics online for free!!!

Its potential for being disruptive innovation is so far untapped because I can discern no marketing strategy as yet. I've written to the founder and suggested having a dialogue about all the possibilities presented here. If I get a response, then I'll write more in a later post.

... as the saying goes, everything starts to look like a nail. That's what's happened to me now I've started to look at business through the eyes of disruptive innovation. Its all around, everywhere I look I'm seeing signs of what I call 'disruptive stress'. Perhaps just 'disstress' would be the right term for it - businesses are disstressed.

Nokia is one big business, but its quite clear they are disstressed, big-time. Their 'cooperation' with Microsoft can only lead to one thing - being embraced and swallowed whole and digested as Boa Constrictors are wont to do. Wikipedia says of the Boa :

The size of the prey item will increase as they get older and larger.

OK Nokia's not of great interest to audio guys, so how about one a little closer to home? This morning in my inbox I received the regular missive from EETimes, replete with the latest gossip from the semiconductors world. Topping the bill - Freescale, with its monstrous debt pile. They...