Posted in Technology on Jun 17th, 2008 No Comments »
Recently Portable Design’s Editor-in-Chief John Donovan managed to catch up with Tensilica’s CEO Chris Rowen. Tensilica’s programmable Extensa processors—long ensconced in Cisco routers—have more recently started appearing in large numbers in handsets from Motorola, Samsung and LG, thanks to licensees AMD/ATI, Samsung and NVIDIA. Since the interview took place the day before the annual ARM Developer’s Conference, the obvious first question was, “How do you (successfully) wrestle with an 800-lb. gorilla?”
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Posted in Technology on Jun 17th, 2008 No Comments »
With over 5000 catalog products, Micrel offers a broad range of high-performance analog, mixed signal and digital ICs that address high-growth markets including cellular telephones, portable electronics, set-top boxes, desktop and notebook computers, networking and communications. The majority of the company’s revenue is derived from power management standard products that largely target portable designs.
Ray Zinn is a cofounder of Micrel and has been its President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of its Board of Directors since the company’s inception in 1978. Like many of Silicon Valley’s founders, Ray began his career at Fairchild Semiconductor. In those days you couldn’t just call up Applied Materials if you needed tools, you had to make them yourself. Ray invented the wafer stepper in 1974, a basic technology that has been in use ever since. That process orientation and drive to invent new technologies has been a constant at Micrel ever since.
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