NXP-- WTF?

In message , dated Mon, 4 Sep 2006, Tony Williams writes

''Ow doo? ''Ow AAAAre yer'? (;-)

Yes, and was previously a resident pianist on 'Children's Hour'.

Hello Frank,

That's what people at Intel must have thought as well. Until this weekend, that is. Rumors have it that there is going to be a huge layoff tomorrow, something north of 10,000. I just wished this rumor hadn't leaked out right before the labor day weekend, must have spoiled many a family barbeque around here because our local plant employs about 7000.

Lack of diversification IMHO, plain and simple. They had lots of good stuff in the pipeline but ditched much of it. Sometimes to the point where I almost banged my head on the table (like when they shelved their most excellent CPLD series).

Doesn't usually work in electronics. Except for jelly-bean parts you typically stick to the mfg that's been good to you. At least that's how it works in many American engineering teams. Not in my wildest dreams would I now switch to a LPC ARM. No matter what carrot they hold under my nose.

In fact, I do. One of the very tiny clients from 10 years ago is now a rather substantial one. Had I turned that teeny job down back then this would not be the case. Resting on the laurels is dangerous but, unfortunately, a very frequent occurrence in large companies.

Up to 20,000 according to anonymous sources quoted in the WSJ. Maybe they leaked the 20K figure so when they lay off "only" 10K (10% of their workforce) people will be relieved.

They just sold some of their interesting radio technology to a Taiwan-based company.

Whose ARM would you pick, then? Atmel? Oki? TI has a rump offering, but most of their ARM products are specialized parts and go only to huge-volume automotive and such like OEM customers.

I think industry diversity is probably more important than number of customers. If you have hundeds of customers but they all make cell phones, you're still going down when the market for that product pauses.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

That's what I thought too, but have you seen that Digikey have a few thousand TMS470xx in stock ?, spread over 9 part numbers from 80 pins to 144 pins, and with a reasonably flat price curve ( 34% from 1:1000).

-jg

Hello Spehro,

That's just the kind of thing that I don't always understand. It's sometimes like a farmer selling or eating his seed potatoes.

No ARM at all. So far it has been 8051, usually. MSP430 would be nice but TI is currently too skimpy on their peripherals specs for my apps. So it remains mostly analog plus jelly-bean logic.

Agree. Although, according to my sister from Germany, the kids over there keep that cell phone market humming. Text messaging galore and lots of ringtones. If I'd be a kid today I guess I'd be "mega-out".

Intel just sold off it's 'communication controller' line (ARM based) to Marvell, which will no doubt involve more layoffs. I can only hope they keep making the things as I use 50k+ of then a year. I really don't need an extra 'unplanned' design cycle right now ;)

Cheers

PeteS

In message , dated Mon, 4 Sep 2006, Joerg writes

Yes, but the executives don't see it like that. They see it as the sunflower seeds they saved three years ago and never got round to planting. So if someone will buy them....

I can't be bothered to snip the (ir)relevent parts but you get s*it points for being part of the problem.

I won't explain why that sort of attitude qualifies you as part of the problem because you are part of the problem.

DNA

You need to update yourself.....

Car boot sale.

DNA

Genome" schreef in bericht news:NP0Lg.7232$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe4-gui.ntli.net...

You don't know s*it about me. Today's business ethics made me quit the scene, tired of playing the devil's advocate. But that didn't change the way it works.

No. It was "Give 'im the money Mabel". :)

In message , dated Wed, 6 Sep 2006, Tony Williams writes

Well, it was both, but 'Mabel' (his wife) was a later addition. For most of the series (plural), the producer Barney Colehan held the money, so it was 'Give 'er the munny, BAAArney!'.