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Technology Stocks : Vitesse Semiconductor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Robert A. Curtis who wrote (2076)	12/4/1998 12:01:00 PM
From: Beltropolis Boy	Respond to of 4710

>If that is right, then the Spice chip is more a loop technology than a backbone technology. >What's the point?? VTSS largely works on the SONET backbone, and NOT taking the data droped off by SONET, and getting it to the curb. robert. thanks for taking the time to respond. for what it's worth, i did a bit more digging and it seems silicon spice's vin dham has somewhat of a checkered past: while he was a 16-year veteran of intel, he "resigned" after the infamous FPU bug, joined AMD, and left a couple of years later after the K6 yield crashes. here's another piece on their 'vaporware.' thanks again, -chris. ----- EETimes April 13, 1998, Issue: 1002 Section: Business Microprocessor veteran Dham takes helm at telecom-IC startup Craig Matsumoto Mountain View, Calif. - Vinod Dham, a key figure in the microprocessor wars of the past few years, has resurfaced as chief executive officer of telecom-minded semiconductor startup Silicon Spice Inc. Dham officially stepped into his position at Silicon Spice earlier this month, after more than three months of what he called active involvement with the company. The move puts Dham back into a startup after a two-year stint with Advanced Micro Devices Inc. A seminal figure in processor circles, Dham led the team that engineered Intel Corp.'s Pentium and Pentium Pro chips. He left Intel for Nexgen, a scrappy startup that was creating its own PC microprocessor. Shortly thereafter, AMD snatched up Nexgen. Dham oversaw development of the K6, which was derived largely from Nexgen's technology. Dham, who clearly relished Nexgen's startup atmosphere, left AMD in November. In considering his next job, he decided to abandon microprocessors, convinced that communications would hold a better chance for great innovations. He also wanted another crack at working for a startup. "My heart really was to go back and run a company on my own," Dham said. "For me personally, it's very intellectually challenging to be here. You don't get a chance like that when you're inside Intel or AMD or Cyrix. The job descriptions get sliced so thin that at the end of the day, you wonder what your contribution was." Founded by Robert Ryan, who was founder and chairman of Ascend Communications Inc., Silicon Spice has completed two rounds of private financing, totaling more than $10 million, from sources including venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers. The company is being coy about its products, which use a new signal-processing architecture to deliver higher network bandwidth to the home. It's a crowded market, but Silicon Spice has a technological lead over existing telecom-chip makers, Dham said. Silicon Spice is working toward first silicon now. It has lined up a foundry partner and has shared its concept with a few potential customers, Dham said. "The breakthroughs or discoveries are behind us at this point," said Gary Banta, vice president of marketing. Officials declined to comment further but did say that Silicon Spice is not taking on the overcrowded digital-subscriber-line industry. Copyright (c) 1998 CMP Media Inc.

To: Robert A. Curtis who wrote (2076)	12/13/1998 12:51:00 PM
From: Beltropolis Boy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 4710

Electonic Buyer's News December 14, 1998, Issue: 1139 Section: Communications A growing Vitesse acquires VTEK Mark LaPedus Silicon Valley -- Amid explosive growth in its communications IC business, Vitesse Semiconductor Corp. hopes to expand into and conquer new markets with the recent acquisition of Vermont Scientific Technologies Inc. (VTEK), Bridgewater Corners, Vt. VTEK-a small, fabless IC-design house with 18 employees-specializes in the development of high-end chip products for several telecommunications and related markets, including ATM, frame relay, xDSL (Digital Subscriber Line), SONET, TCP/IP, and RISC processors. Initially, Vitesse will leverage VTEK's technology to broaden its own SONET chip efforts. "The acquisition of VTEK adds considerable value to our existing design expertise, particularly in the SONET overhead-processing area," said Robert Nunn, vice president and general manager of Vitesse's Telecommunications Division. Vitesse--a gallium arsenide (GaAs) chip specialist based in Camarillo, Calif.--will roll out the first of a new family of overhead-processor products based on VTEK's technology by mid-1999. The products will address 2.5-Gbit/s-bandwidth (OC-48) applications, Nunn said. With VTEK's technology, Vitesse is looking at a variety of chip markets, including xDSL. But, while the company did not elaborate on its future in xDSL, it has recently expanded into other areas. Last week, for example, Vitesse introduced its Cross-Stream chip-set for use in high-bandwidth data-communications switch applications, such as Gigabit Ethernet, ATM, and Fibre Channel. The Cross-Stream chipset, which allows OEMs to use fewer but faster chips in synchronous serial-backplane applications, consists of two devices: the VSC870, a 2-Gbit/s synchronous serial transceiver; and the VSC880, a 2-Gbit/s serial-switch fabric IC. The VSC870 and VSC880 cost $69 and $250, respectively, in 1,000s. Both products will begin sampling in the first quarter of next year. Vitesse has had a big year in other ways as well. In addition to opening the world's first 6-in. GaAs wafer-processing fab, in Colorado Springs, Colo., the company recently reported sales of $175.1 million for fiscal 1998, ended Sept. 30--a 67% increase over fiscal 1997. Net income for 1998 was $52.9 million, compared with $32.9 million the previous year. Vitesse is also bullish about 1999. "I've heard the downturn in the semiconductor market has finally bottomed out, but Vitesse is still going strong," Nunn said. "We believe we can grow 50% this year [in revenue]. We feel we can sustain that kind of growth beyond 1999. "We're still seeing strong growth on the telecom side," Nunn added. "There's also a lot going on the data communications side of the business." Copyright ® 1998 CMP Media Inc.