Undisputedly, growth in the semiconductor industry is a good thing. And Broadcom Corp, a company that has consistently out paced overall industry growth since 1995, shines as an example of growth in both revenue and innovation.

The communications giant recorded 2006 revenues of $3.67 billion, received its 2000th US patent in March, and has had more than 30 acquisitions since its 1998 initial public offering, adding numerous employees and business units to now claim a head count of approximately 5230 and more than 20 units among its 60 global locations.

Although a good thing, growth also can be a challenge. And, in Broadcom's situation, the challenge matches its tagline: “Connecting Everything.” The Irvine, CA, company's technology strategy is to continue to develop semiconductors that connect different devices.

But Broadcom also has to connect its own internal businesses, a necessary and vital action for a company that aims to maintain its core competencies while continuing its growth. “Our strategy for growth ties in with that 'connection,'” says Broadcom Chief Executive Officer Scott McGregor. “Within our company, we have 20 some odd lines of business, each of which pursues a different aspect of the communications market, and we connect them in a number of ways.”

McGregor, who moved in January 2005 from Philips Semiconductor to take the helm at Broadcom, points to central engineering, flat organization structures, and a decentralized model that empowers each unit's general managers to drive their business. “We also buy a lot of start-up companies,” he says.

The company, a start-up itself in 1991, aimed to take on behemoths such as Intel Corp. Although it now stands shoulder to shoulder with Intel and the like, it strives to keep its start-up spirit 16 years later. “One of the ways to feel like a start-up is to have a lot of the people in the company recently come from start-ups. We find that we compete for talent with start-up companies more than the more established companies [do]. That reflects both our innovation and our culture and allows us to create an environment where people who come from start-up companies like it here,” McGregor says, claiming a high employee-retention rate when Broadcom acquires start-ups.

“We consider ourselves a large start-up—or perhaps a plethora of start-ups—and that's our strength. We keep it that way because it gives us the aggressiveness, the energy and the passion to really do great products in the market,” he says. A steady stream of acquisitions also keeps Broadcom's portfolio expanding, a big plus, according to McGregor, who expects the communications market to continue its high-growth and for the winners in the market to be the companies that can “connect everything” among these wired and wireless technologies.

“A lot of these technologies were relatively stagnant a number of years ago. Television went for decades without changing; now, suddenly, there are all of these display technologies,” he says. “We now expect that devices in our home will communicate. There is a lot of excitement in the mobile area [in] new handheld devices. There's a lot going on in wireless connectivity and the ability to move video around. Lots of new content is becoming available. For me, these are catalysts of an industry that has a lot of growth ahead of it.

“One of the reasons we focus on communications in the broad sense is that we believe that not only is it an interesting market, but the winners are going to be the ones that can play across all the different facets of the market and bring it together. The ones that have great niche products? I'm afraid their days have passed,” McGregor says. “The companies that will lead the future are the ones that can bring to bear a broad portfolio of technologies and communications.”