Word: sematech
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...prime reason for the slump is that corporate customers are cutting back on spending as they go through buyouts, mergers and restructurings. "Big customers are hanging back because they don't have any money," says Robert Noyce, chief executive of Sematech, a consortium of computer-chip makers. At the same time, the industry has graduated from an "original placement" business, in which many companies rushed to automate for the first time, to a "replacement" business, in which corporations buy computers only when they need new models...
Such cooperative efforts tend to go against the grain in the U.S., where entrepreneurs often view their colleagues as blood rivals. "America has been wickedly competitive within itself," observes Robert Noyce, a co-inventor of the integrated circuit and near legendary figure from Silicon Valley who now heads Sematech. The danger is that by focusing too much on short-term competitive standings, U.S. industry will spend too little time preparing for the future. The most complex technologies require long-term planning and investments, and the payoffs, while potentially enormous, may be long delayed. But U.S. business leaders are showing signs...
Persuaded that the critical U.S. semiconductor and computer industries need special help, the Reagan Administration has permitted the formation of two experimental consortiums, Sematech and the Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corp. (MCC), both based in Austin. Since 1983, 19 major computer manufacturers, including Control Data, Digital Equipment and Honeywell, have pooled advanced research efforts through MCC. More than 70 new advances developed by MCC are now being refined by member firms...
...Sematech a group of 14 semiconductor manufacturers has been working since last year on joint research, bolstered by a $100 million federal grant. Says Sanford Kane, an IBM official who serves as chairman of Sematech's executive committee: "We've discovered a formula where normally fierce industry competitors can work together with the Government. Fear ((of foreign rivals)) can be a very persuasive motivator." Democratic Presidential Candidate Michael Dukakis apparently thinks the idea could serve older industries as well. On a tour of a specialty-steel plant in Pittsburgh last week, he promised that as President he would create...
...state has had relatively few of those lately, but last week it got a potentially Texas-size economic spur. A consortium of 14 U.S. semiconductor firms chose Austin over competing sites in 34 states for its research center, which will spend an estimated $250 million annually. The consortium, called Sematech, for Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology, includes fierce rivals that have joined forces on chip research in the face of bruising foreign competition. Austin's coup could help make it a Sunbelt Silicon Valley. The capital had $ already attracted a research center for a similar consortium, Microelectronics and Computer Technology Corp., which...