Scott McGregor, Broadcom Corp.’s chief executive, talked about nearly every crook and cranny of his company and the chip industry at a recent “fireside chat” at the University Club in Irvine.
The event drew more than 100 people to the University of California, Irvine, from venture capitalist types to entrepreneurs. The event’s sponsor was The Indus Enterpreneuers, Southern California chapter, a technology-focused group known as TiE.
McGregor mostly was optimistic.
“We see ourselves as being the No. 1 communications semiconductor company,” he said.
One of the biggest areas of growth McGregor sees for Broadcom: wireless phones, especially with the rollout of wideband, or 3G networks.
Wireless phone sales could reach a billion units a year by 2009,up from less than 700 million last year, McGregor said.
3G, or third generation, networks let users access big files, such as TV clips and songs via their phones. The networks still are young but they’re catching on in other countries and are in its startup stage in the U.S.
“3G is driving a replacement cycle,” McGregor said.
Broadcom’s Bluetooth chips for phones sell for around $3 apiece, he said. But phone makers also are looking to add radio tuners to handsets,chips that cost around $1.
That’s not a lot, he said. But it adds up.
McGregor didn’t mention Broadcom’s litigation with San Diego-based Qualcomm Inc.
Another area of discussion,sometimes heated,was the so-called digital home of the future. It could feature multimedia outlets throughout the home linked to a central hub, such as a set-top box or digital TV.
The question facing the industry today is what technology will run the digital home. McGregor called it one of the most “epic battles of the century.”
Still, McGregor said he doesn’t care what technology emerges as the winner. Broadcom sells the chips that run all of them.
“We’re going to sell to every one of those guys,” he said. “We’re agnostic; we’ll sell the weapons.”
For all McGregor’s optimism, he had some reservations about the overall economy. He pointed to rising gas prices and some tempered views by corporations about future earnings, though he noted the hurricanes shouldn’t be a long-term problem.
“One of the things that troubles us is a lot of signs that the economy may fizzle,” he said.
That should become easier to read in the next few quarters, McGregor said.
More Offshore
Newport Beach-based Conexant Systems Inc. continues to sharpen its focus on India.
The chipmaker recently said it expanded its India management team with what it called “industry veterans.”
Shiva Gowni joined the company as president of India operations. Naresh Malipeddi, managing director of Conexant Systems India, was promoted to chief operating officer of India operations.
Prior to joining Conexant, Gowni was the general manager of San Jose-based Cypress Semiconductor Corp. in India.
Gowni will report to President Matt Rhodes and will be responsible for managing and directing all the activities of the company’s India workforce.
Malipeddi will report to Gowni. Malipeddi, who has more than 15 years experience in India, joined Conexant in 2000 through an acquisition.
The emphasis on India is all part of Conexant’s drive to cut costs.
“Our product development operations in India are a focal point of our strategic initiative to leverage lower-cost offshore resources,” said Dwight Decker, Conexant’s chief executive.
Systematic Growth
SiliconSystems Inc. of Aliso Viejo is ramping up.
The company, which sells drives that use flash storage instead of disks, recently said South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. will provide more flash memory to SiliconSystems in the next several years.
The news follows SiliconSystems’ announcement this past summer that it had closed a second round of funding.
The amount of the round wasn’t disclosed. Michael Hajeck, founder and chief executive, said the round was “eight figures” and would sustain the company for three years.
SiliconSystems closed its first round of funding, worth $3 million to $5 million, in 2004.
The company’s product looks like a 2.5-inch disk drive. Instead of the platters and heads found in disk drives, SiliconSystems’ devices are full of memory chips.
Like disk drives, they have a controller,a circuit board with chips,for connecting the device to a computer.
They’re designed to store small amounts of data, sometimes in hot, cold, dusty or otherwise tough settings.
The devices are used in medical instruments, video poker machines, electronic voting gear, corporate voice mail systems and military equipment.
