FSA seeks to take on larger industry role: transitions to Global Semiconductor Alliance

By Ann Steffora Mutschler, Senior Editor -- Electronic News, 12/3/2007

To emphasize what it says is its global role in creating an effective ecosystem and expansion of leadership, San Jose-based industry association Fabless Semiconductor Association (FSA) said today that its global leadership, including its board of directors, Asia Pacific (AP) leadership council and Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) leadership council unanimously made the decision to become the Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA).

The group says the transition reflects the role FSA has played as a global semiconductor organization and acknowledges that its original mission to proliferate the adoption of the fabless business model has been achieved.

The GSA said its mission is to accelerate the growth and increase the return on invested capital of the global semiconductor industry by fostering a more effective fabless ecosystem through collaboration, integration and innovation by addressing the challenges and allowing industry-wide solutions within the supply chain, including intellectual property (IP), electronic design automation (EDA)/design, wafer manufacturing, test and packaging.

The GSA also said it will provide a platform for meaningful global collaboration; identify and articulate market opportunities; encourage and support entrepreneurship; and provide members with comprehensive and unique market intelligence.

Dr. Dwight Decker, GSA chairman and non-executive chairman of Conexant Systems Inc. said in a statement, “FSA’s role has been vital to the emergence, adoption and dominance of the business model. Today, the organization is focused on addressing the challenges inherent in a complex value chain. Its new role will be to reduce inefficiencies to ensure the long-term viability, growth and profitability of the semiconductor industry.”

Wim Roelandts, president, CEO and chairman of Xilinx Inc. and chairman of the Semiconductor Industry Association noted that since 1994, the growth of the FSA from a handful of companies to 500 members worldwide speaks to the value of the organization and its founding mission. “This next phase in its evolution as the Global Semiconductor Alliance is an exciting time, as it continues to support the overall growth of the semiconductor industry alongside complementary organizations.”

Members of GSA include companies throughout the supply chain, in 25 countries.

Further, the GSA said it remains committed to encourage and support entrepreneurship and has dedicated a director position for an emerging/start-up company, and has also established the Emerging Company CEO Council, increased the number of emerging companies participating in its regional councils and continues to work closely with the venture capital (VC) community through its VC advisory council.

GSA said it addresses regional challenges and opportunities within Asia through its AP leadership council, as well as with offices in Taiwan and China. Its EMEA leadership council has expanded to include industry leaders from the United Kingdom, Germany, Israel, Belgium and France and GSA said it will also align with regional organizations to complement their services, while avoiding duplication of resources.

For 2008, the GSA’s board of directors includes 13 positions: five fabless company positions, three foundry positions, one integrated device manufacturer (IDM) position, two back-end supplier positions and two design partner positions.

New fabless directors include Dr. Naveed Sherwani, president and CEO at Open-Silicon; Vincent Tong, VP of worldwide quality and reliability engineering at Xilinx and John Urwin, COO at Wolfson Microelectronics.  Decker, GSA chairman and non-executive chairman of the board at Conexant Systems and Colin Harris, VP and COO at PMC-Sierra were re-elected.  Each will serve a three-year term.

For foundry representation, Rick Cassidy, president of TSMC North America, Dr. Fu-Tai Liou, president of the America business group at UMC and Michael Rekuc, president of the Americas region at Chartered Semiconductor, were re-elected for another one-year term.

Steven Longoria, VP of semiconductor solutions at IBM, was elected to the IDM director position.  Oleg Khaykin, executive VP and COO at Amkor Technology and Dr. Tien Wu, COO at ASE Group, return to represent back-end suppliers.  Representing design partners, Dr. Walden Rhines, chairman of the board and CEO at Mentor Graphics Corp. joins the board, and Dr. Aart de Geus, chairman of the board and CEO of Synopsys Inc. was re-elected.  These representatives serve a one-year term.

Additional returning members include Dr. Sanjay Jha, GSA vice chairman and COO at Qualcomm and president of Qualcomm CDMA Technologies; Jodi Shelton, GSA co-founder and executive director; Dr. Robert Pepper, GSA director emeritus and chairman of the board at KeyEye Communications; Danny Biran, senior VP of product and corporate marketing at Altera; Jack Harding, chairman, president and CEO at eSilicon; Dr. Nicky Lu, president and CEO at Etron Technology; Chris Malachowsky, co-founder, NVIDIA fellow and senior VP of engineering and operations at NVIDIA; Vahid Manian, senior VP of global manufacturing operations at Broadcom; Steve Michael, VP of operations and R&QA at Exar and Dr. Albert Wu, VP of operations at Marvell Semiconductor.