Sarah, << good evaluation of TI going foward >>
I was part of the ground floor build up in mixed signal design.
We were only a handful of people brought together under a vision
concieved by Keh-Shew Lu, now moved on to bigger and better things.
Seems it was mid 80's time frame. Semi's were just pulling out of
tough times. A few key people were pulled in from TI Cypress while
others there went to Cypress semiconductor, if not mistaken. TI
Cypress was being shut down from hard times and people were surplused.
Simutaneously we picked up a small telecom group that was struggling.
We ended up with a few killer designers. High risk decision for
Keh-Shew in hard times, but what vision!
As analog to digital demand grew, Ming Chiang, then design manager,
as Keh-Shew was promoted to department manager, chose to find talent
through hiring nothing but 4.0 graduates, preferably PHD's. Down the
learning curve it was discovered it took about 2 years for these aces
to understand this rapidly evolving technology. Probably somewhere
around 94 - 95, it became clear it was quicker and cheaper to get
new ideas to the market place through acquisitions. It was really
something to see a group of a dozen people grow to 350 in less than
10 years. All this before the acquisitions. TI does have the design
talent, but I'm sure all the major players are equally staffed.
I believe it will now come down to the savy of management within the
key players of this field. Thought the evolutionary history might
interest you. Now this is only mixed signal, about a 1 billion part
of the DSP solution. Templeton, who came up through the ASIC part
of the linear division, I don't know, although in the early 80's I
worked with some of his key people in the bipolar days. As Engibeous
came up through linear, I've had some interface with him when he was
the V.P. over linear. Enough to know his personality. I'm a big fan
of him. He once smoothly undressed me during a presentation when I
suggested TI's catalog venture should be minimal, with emphasis on
custom products. :-) God, would I love to iterate it again today!
A proud memory for me, but only the undressing at the time will
be remembered by peers. Hope I didn't bore you too much. A little
idle time on my hands.
Larry |
