 |
|
||
|
||||||||||||||||
RFMD EDGE PAs to be in 15 Samsung HandsetsJuly 31, 2006...RFMD, a radio systems solution developer in Greensboro, North Carolina USA, announced the shipment of the mass produced EDGE power amplifiers (PAs) to Samsung Electronics. Samsung will reportedly place the RF3159 linear EDGE power amplifiers in at least 15 of its handset models. According to RFMD, the RF3159 is a high linearity quad-band GSM/GPRS/EDGE PA designed to support multiple EDGE transceiver platforms, and it is optimized for use with either direct in-phase and quadrative or small signal polar modulation. The module is designed to be the final amplification stage in a dual-mode GSM/GPRS/EDGE mobile transmit lineup operating in the 824MHz to 915MHz and 1710MHz to 1910MHz bands. RFMD News Release STS Appoints Dr. Robin Johnson COO |
||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||
Commentary & Perspective...
End of One Era; Start of the NextJuly 25, 2006...With the sale of its electronic materials and device division (EMD) to IQE, Emcore Corporation will have officially ended its surprisingly long reign as one of the most powerful vertically integrated companies in the compound semi (CS) and solid state lighting (SSL) industries. Since its inception in 1984 as a pioneering manufacturer of MOCVD platforms and spinout of Bell Labs, Emcore helped strengthen an amazing number of careers for many who now read these pages. Emcore continues to hold its 49% interest in GELcore with GE and therefore maintains a vested interest and presence in the SSL industry. Emcore also continues with its GaAs-based photovoltaic division which will help drive the terrestrial solar market toward higher efficiency cells such as those used in space applications. The sale of its epiwafer and device foundry marks the end of an era. After 20 years of strong sales and power plays, the most exciting product Emcore contributed to the CS and SSL industries was its people. The ex-Emcore club remains a tight-knit group. I know. I'm one of them. I spent a small but colorful handful of my 30 years in this field inside Emcore as their director of corporate communications, a time when many firsts occurred. Those are now being looked at as "the good old days", primarily because so many good people were able to work together helping pioneer the CS and SSL industries. Emcore remains strong and strongly committed to the compounds. As the current COO, Scott Massie stated, the company strategy now is focused on broadband infrastructure, solar power and highly integrated products. As the broadband market revitalizes itself, and as multijunction solar catches on in terrestrial markets as it has in space, and as solid state lighting becomes a priority for GE, Emcore will likely be there. And if any one of those markets really takes off, Emcore has the others in reserve in case those puppies, like TurboDisc and EMD (aka "E2M") before them, need to go to new homes. Like American pioneers, Emcore has gradually moved west. Corporate headquarters have always been in Somerset, New Jersey in the neighborhood of Bell Labs, but more and more of its operations have been based in New Mexico and California. Top management including VP finance Tom Werthan and CTO Rick Stall remain based in New Jersey, and president/CEO Reuben Richards is based in California, with strong ties to Jersey. Will corporate headquarters move west? That's often been speculated. TurboDisc, under Veeco is still housed in its original Somerset quarters, the spinout GaN power device operation, Velox, under Tom Hierl is still there (ref: May 6, 2005 news), and now IQE will run EMD out of Somerset as well. So on the surface, little has changed. But beneath that, a tremendous amount has changed since those "good old days." Some key people that came out of Emcore are now the heads of some of the most important shaker/mover companies in the CS and SSL fields. Bill Kroll, for example, is now the president/CEO and chairman of Matheson Tri-Gas. As Emcore's executive VP during the boom time, "Kroll" (who literally knows everybody in the CS business) was key in creating GELcore, and it was Kroll who created Emcore's legendary tagline "integrated compound semiconductor solutions". When we awarded him the proverbial gold watch upon retirement from Emcore in 2000, it was inscribed "Mission Accomplished". That pretty well summed up Emcore's influential posture. Robert (Bob) Walker, who was the head of marketing and my designated "boss" when I began consulting to Emcore in 1996 went on to become a major Asian market expert in the high brightness LED field. Bob is now president and CEO of BridgeLux and continues to co-chair our annual Blue/SSL Suppliers Forum in Taiwan. A surprising number of ex-Emcoreans are at BridgeLux. The list of ex-Emcore people who are now pushing for that next great boom in the CS and SSL industries is long and strong. Steve Smith, who once directed Emcore's epiwafer foundry is now a patent attorney at SimmonsCooper in East Alton, Illinois. Larry Wagner and Craig Farley both had good runs putting Emcore's epiwafers on the map. The ex-Emcorean has many standouts such as ace CS/SSL market expert Alan Thompson staying in the limelight after retiring from Emcore. Alan has done an outstanding job as our conference coordinator for Blue/SSLS event. When I semi-retired last year and decided that since I was now only a commentator and no longer a day-to-day trade press news journalist, I started the CS/SSL experimental stock portfolio. It's a meager collection (which is all I can afford to gamble) solely for the purpose of measuring a pulsebeat of the industries we champion in these pages. It's also fun to see how they're doing (which isn't all that great right now) but interesting nonetheless. The very first stock I purchased was Emcore's, which trades as EMKR on the Nasdaq exchange. Emcore went public the year prior to my going inside Emcore and opened at about $10/share as I recall. Prior to it going public, Norm Schumaker, the original co-founder of Emcore, tried to recruit me to go inside. It wasn't until a year later that I was willing to "rent my soul" and put my journalistic credentials on the shelf to do so. A year or so later, Bill Kroll tried again, and I said yes, mainly because the gig meant that I could promote Norm as the guru of the industry he helped create. Little did I know then that Norm would retire and that Emcore would grow into a full service company and become as diversified as it eventually did, under Reuben Richard's command. Emcore stock soared at one point during the boom to $150/share and now it's trading below its original entry price. A lot of smart people cashed in when it reached its peak and with the proceeds and were able to fulfill lifetime dreams on the windfall. Norm Schumaker and his lovely wife retired from Emcore and moved to Austin, Texas. Norm went on to found Molecular Imprints, from which he also recently retired. Norm continues to serve as a catalyst and backer of entrepreneurs and is slated as a speaker at the University of Texas' 2006 Ready to Commercialize conference October 12th in Dallas. Life goes on and for many, it's not so much the end of an era as it is the start of another, that may prove eventually to be even more robust than the chapter we're closing. Many, many of us will personally remember the good old days with warm fuzzy feelings and toast the legions of great people and who have spun out of Emcore and those still inside who continue the mission of waking up the world to the prospects of truly tremendous compound semi and solid state lighting technology. If you have news or
views to share about the compound semiconductor, LED or solid
state lighting industries |
||||||||||||||||
