In memory of Dana

Dana Sehnert who worked for me at Analog Solutions as a Vice President and Account Mgr. for the last 7 years has passed away on November 20, 2012. It is a very sad time here at Analog Solutions. Our prayers are with his wife Lisa and his 3 daughters, especially during this Holiday Season.

Happy Holidays

Wherever you are celebrating your Holiday, hopefully with loved ones and family.... I want to wish you a happy and peaceful time. Precious are the moments we have, and there is never a guarantee of another day.

I will be with my family and enjoying a great Holiday time this season. And with the new year approaching, I am excited about the optimistic 2013 forecast for our Semiconductor Analog Industry. We've already had great interest for Executive Technology Employees and we are ready to hit the ground running in the New Year.

Best to you and yours this Holiday Season!
Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions (www.analogsolutions.com), Executive Technology Recruiter
(photo courtesy of Snoopy :)

Numerous items our Analog World Develops

Most of us know, but just a bit of education for those not in our Analog world...what Analog chips do!

Analog chips are small electronic circuits. Unlike digital chips that can differentiate only between "on" and "off" signals, analog chips can process gradations. In practical terms, digital chips are the best at manipulating or storing data bits as the numeral 1 or the numeral 0, and analog chips can read and process waveforms such as speech, music and video. Hence, analog chips create a bridge to the digital world full of storage and manipulation capabilities.

Examples of Uses

Digital cameras, cell phones, Internet telephony and downloading or uploading Internet audio, video or image files all involve analog technology. The typed word "hello" is simple for a digital chip to understand, but only analog chips can understand the spoken word. Storage on compact discs (CDs) and digital versatile discs (DVDs) is digital. Analog chips are used as translators to bridge the gaps into and out of the digital world, converting waveforms into digital data, then reassembling the data back into waveforms for it to be seen or heard. The digital format provides the storehouse.

Our Prayers are with you Dana

For those of you that know Dana Sehnert who worked for me at Analog Solutions as a Vice President and Account Mgr. for the last 7 years, I would like to ask for your prayers. Dana is in a Tennessee hospice fighting for his life. It is a very sad time here at Analog Solutions. Our prayers are with his wife Lisa and his 3 daughters.

Turkey Trot

For those who like to run and be active, if you happen to be in Silicon Valley for Thanksgiving, you can join the Turkey Trot in downtown San Jose, California.

They have a 5k, 10k run and many other activities on the day of Thanksgiving.

Over 25,000 participants are already signed up and they are hoping to give $700k to charities and non-profit organizations.


To learn more go here!

Gary Fowler, Executive Technology Recruiter, Analog Solutions

Plasma Workshop

Plasma-Therm holds a workshop at the Microelectronic Research Center of University of Texas. Did you know information about semiconductor and materials processing is highly sought after?

Plasma-Therm LLC of Florida host a Plasma processing workshop about technologies used primarily in semiconductor device fabrication and materials science research.

People who are attending this workshop include graduate students, facility staff, post-doctoral researchers, and engineers. Learn more at Semiconductor Today

Most of the workshop attendees are involved in projects requiring process capability that ranges from solar energy, nanostructures, data storage, opto-telecommunications, and MEMS.

Executive Technology Recruiter Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions

Analog Solutions for Sustainability Multi-Billion Dollar...

Gary Fowler of Analog Solutions writes about...

Active-Semi is one of the leaders in highly integrated semiconductor power management solutions. They have recently come out with a Management Solutions Power Applications Controller Platform (PAC) needed by many popular consumer products.

They are pioneering in Micro Application Solutions. This solutions allow conversions to energy efficient home appliances, industrial controls, LED lighting, computer power supplies, automotive electronics and renewable energy products.

LG Electronics raves about this new system..."PAC is a very unique system chip platform that allows us to implement various high energy efficiency products with reduced time to market."

This is a Multi-Billion Dollar market!  Researchers expect global microcontroller products to reach $26.7 billion by 2017.

This is mainly because of electronics demanded by the consumer, industrial and automotive companies depending on microcontrollers to achieve and manage efficient, built-in energy-saving features.

Read more about this innovative technology here.

Excerpt from article (See below for some high consumer demand products using this PAC platform):

• Home appliances such as washing machine, dishwashers and induction heat ovens and stoves
• Air conditioning systems
• Motor controllers
• Power tools
• LED lighting controllers
• Solar micro-inverters
• Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS)
• General purpose high-voltage system controllers

Calling all Engineering Students and Professors Worldwide

Analog Devices is opening up an ADI University Program Design Contest. The goal is to enhance engineering students’ educational experience by helping them to quickly and easily build and test real-world, functional analog circuits.

I believe this is a great way to encourage creativity, ingenuity, and facilitate the development of better technology. 

• This contest is open to all university students.
• All required materials will be submitted in English.
• All submissions must be original and belong to you.
• By submitting your projects you agree to allow ADI to reuse them for training and educational purposes.

Analog Devices serves over 60,000 customers, representing virtually all types of electronic equipment. Analog Devices is headquartered in Norwood, Massachusetts, with design and manufacturing facilities throughout the world. Analog Devices is included in the S&P 500 Index.

To learn more about this international contest that ends with a proposal in front of Industry Experts at  the Analog Devices General Technical Conference in April 2013 click here

Gary Fowler, Executive Technology Recruiter, Analog Solutions

Humans drive our technology focused world

Today I wanted to write about something positive that happened on location at one of our leaders in this technology analog world, Google (GOOG).

Her name is Yeni Lopez and she is a janitor at the big Google headquarters in Silicon Valley. She originally only spoke Spanish as a language. She wanted to learn English to help her work and her daughter.

Yeni went to school three times a week for English and a fellow Google co-worker helped on her journey: A software engineer, by the name of Ben Lindahl, met with Lopez in a conference room an hour a week for structured English lessons for a year and a half.

Now the young lady can speak wonderful English and is able to interact better and currently volunteers at her daughters school during the day, while she works all night as a janitor at Google.

I enjoy this true story of other people helping one another in just the simple "human" areas of life that truly makes a positive impact. Even while surrounded by the most sophisticated technology, we can never forget the human element involved in all of life.

Read more here 

Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions, Executive Technology Recruiter

Sphero the robot ball by Orbotix

It is interesting all the different type of things our analog semiconductor world can create.

Orbotix is a robot gaming system company. Launched by an entrepreneur who was involved with building 'homemade' robots since he was a child. This electrical engineer eventually found 5 million dollars to allow the company to go into full force production.

This robot is simply just a ball. Controlled by your smart phone.

You can even change the color from the application and customize your ball. The "Sphero" Balls sell for $129 a piece. I am sure it took a lot of Executive Technology Employees to produce this product!



Gary Fowler, Executive Technology Recruiter, Analog Solutions

Saving money is good!

Smart Gas Metering technology does just that...(Photo is an old analog gas meter on an ex-gas reservoir)

OMRON and STMicroelectronis (a global semiconductor leader) are working together for a smart electronic meter that will provide a more accurate and reliable measurements for most major gas providers. To unveil in November of 2012.

These meters will be much smaller, less expensive, and more efficient than the conventional equipment out there. Resulting in a cost savings for the utility companies and end users too!

These sensors are state of the art Micro-Elector-Mechanical Systems with a thermal flow transducer and high-performance analog front-end IC.

The best part of this new technology…measurements of gas quantities will be more accurate and allow for a savings of energy. As the old traditional gas measures do not automatically account for temperature, pressure variations, and multiple gas composition measurements. 

This new technology does compensate for this, thus saving energy by having laser focused measurements with no waste…that equals to huge gas savings when added up across the board.

Read more here!

Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions, Executive Technology Recruiter

This Video makes me Thankful I am in the Semiconductor Industry!

Today I shared on my social networks a video about "From Here to There: Semiconductors". I wanted to share it on my Blog as well.

This video truly validates my experiences from working in this industry for over 30 years, and it has been an amazing experience. I look forward to even more good and innovation in the future as well.

What amazes me is how much of this "world" our Semiconductor Industry powers. It can be easy (if you work in this industry on a day to day basis) to forget how much impact our industry has on the world.

The semiconductor industry is a 226 Billion Dollar industry. It powers almost everything technology driven that humans come in touch with….Computers, Cars, Mobile Devices, TVs Satellites, Pacemakers, Radios, Digital Devices, ATM Machines, Baby Monitors, Airplanes….and much much more!

I enjoy being a recruiter for this industry. It is nice to see how this industry truly does provide top paying jobs for important projects. This industry provides 5.92 Million high wage jobs, which I am thankful to own Analog Solutions and always look forward to finding the right employees to place within this wonderful industry.

Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions, Executive Technology Recruiter

TV Everywhere!

Adobe offered during the Olympics a streaming mobile app allowing users to watch the Olympics on mobile devices. They are planning to have this "TV Everywhere" App fully integrated for major TV shows within two years.

This system was actually born three years ago by Time Warner and Comcast. Today it has become more of a reality as content providers and distributors embrace technology that allows TV shows to be accessed on all mobile platforms, not just on traditional TV platforms.

Currently CNN, TBS, TNT, MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon, Disney and more offer "TV Everywhere".

Taken straight from the article, I found this to be very interesting!…Smartphones are often the starting point for a “digital experience,” and users then go on to their other screens. TVs still get the most screen time of our leisure time, although 77 percent of viewers are simultaneously looking at another screen when watching television.

Read more here!

Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions, Executive Technology Recruiter

Charge this phone with no cords!

This is very appealing to me, less cords running around! This new Nokia Lumia920 phone, just released on Monday has wireless option charging. The user just places it on a wireless charging pod. 

Nokia has a partnership with Microsoft Windows platforms in trying to compete with the ever popular smart phone(s) iPhone and Droid (run on the Google platform). Windows likes Nokia for their increased user exposure as well.

Seems like 4 million Nokia phones sold in this year's second quarter would be a lot? But in comparison to the 26 million iPhones sold it is a disappointment.

October 26, 2012 Microsoft Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 for Tablets launches and you will see this new Nokia Lumia920 phone on the market.

In this apple monopolized technology world taking up most of the "apple pie" for smartphone users, we will see how much new phones, such as this one, will get? Either way, getting some piece of the pie is better than none. 

Read more here: Oakland Tribune on-line news Nokia article

Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions, Executive Technology Recruiter

Be "The Thomas"

Who is Thomas Edison?

Someone that we can all learn from. 

In the many many steps that lead to success, failures are inevitable. It is how you deal with the failures that ultimately leads to the story of success.

Quote: "I haven't failed, I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work"… Thomas Edison.

Remember when times are tough, the tenacious survive. Keep your mind positive and your thoughts pure. Keep walking even when you feel you can not. Success comes with the right attitude, hard work and sometimes just a bit of blood, sweat and tears. But isn't it worth it? How much more does it mean when you persevered through adversity and reached your goal? If it was easy, everyone would do it!

Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions, Executive Technology Recruiter

PayPal taking it to the "bricks"

PayPal strikes payments deal with Discover

PayPal will now be able to access millions of brick and mortar stores. Under a deal that happened just today, PayPal will issue payment cards to more than 50 million active customers.

This deal was made between PayPal and Discover. Any merchant that currently takes the Discover network will now have increased PayPal customer transactions from their physical shop.

PayPal is also available as a form of payment in other stores outside of just Discover Merchants. Probably due to it's popularity and income potential, as it currently accounts for almost half of San Jose-based EBay's annual revenue. More than 15 brick and mortar retailers, including Home Depot and Office Depot accept PayPal.

Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions

Google paid 12.5 BILLION for Motorola, Why?...

Motorola Mobility, acquired by Google in May 2012 for $12.5 billion.

Motorola is one of the oldest brands in electronics and was the pioneer of the cellphone. Do you remember the ring tone.. "Hello Moto!" on the motorola flip phone?

Earlier I wrote an article about Apple suing Samsung's Android for patent infringement. The Android uses the Google computing platform. Thus Google had a definite motivation to purchase Motorola. Owning Motorola, and all it's 17,000 patents, helps to bolster its legal position and defend the Android platform.

Second of all, this purchase by Google will help position them for selling equipment, i.e.-smartphones and tablet computers. Google wants to take over the world and they are definitely on their way!

Cell phones and smart phones have changed the world. Never out of touch. Never out of hand. With it so common now, it's hard to believe that Apple didn't introduce it's first iPhone until June 2007. Seems like it has been around for much longer!

Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions, Executive Technology Recruiter

IDT Acquires NXP's Data Converter Assets

It is very exciting to see companies adapting and growing to become better for our technology driven world. There are always gaps when providing a service within this high tech analog and mixed signal conductor industry. But, IDT has just narrowed that service gap by acquiring this new data from NXP they have positioned themselves as a very very valuable company within our semiconductor analog world.

IDT delivers essential mixed-signal semiconductor solutions. They have acquired NXP's high-speed data converter assets (Alvand Technologies).

By doing this, IDT is in prime position to be the go to for a comprehensive solutions provider for wireless infrastructure. IDT will now be a "one-stop shop" for wireless base stations. (Including radio frequency components, Analog-to-digital converters, digital-to-analog converters… and much much more!) Gaining a competitive and much needed advantage in the technology market place.

Read the full article here

Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions

Finding a Pot of Gold, Reality Style!

"Silicon Valley" will be it's own Reality show on Bravo this winter. I suppose everything has a "story to be told", even Silicon Valley. The valley for innovative technology and budding entrepreneurs, all looking for their own Pot of Gold in the Valley.

We live in a world of ever changing technology, a constant frenzy of new ideas  & products demanded by the market. I have seen many changes and amazing technology produced in this field over the course of 30 years. So, it comes to no surprise that a reality show would document the shifts in our culture and the brilliant products being born.

Most likely for viewers, the "lives" involved in creating the paths for current and future technology will be interesting to watch. With millions and billions of dollars pouring into this industry, all it takes for these "path makers" is an idea and the right investors to be the next "boom" in technology.

This "Yammer" story is certainly validation for above….
Only the idea counts. When it goes viral, the company can quickly be worth hundreds of millions if not more. Yammer, a social network for companies, started in late 2008. Last month was sold to Microsoft for $1.2 billion, and no one batted an eye. (Featured in this New York Times article about the upcoming "Silicon Valley" Reality Show). Photo by New York Times.

Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions, Executive Technology Recruiter, Semiconductor, Analog

6 out of 15 Top Patents in 2011 were Semiconductor Companies

For the first time in history the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office will open offices outside of the Washington, D.C. area. These new offices will be in areas that have a strong semiconductor presence (Dallas, Denver, and Silicon Valley).

It is exciting to see so many new patents being granted for our growing industry. However, the Patent and Trademark Office does have over 600,000 pending patent applications. It can take up to three years for the patents to be fully processed and approved. In our industry this can pose a definite challenge, as innovative ideas need to be implemented quickly for our ever evolving technology world.

Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions, Executive Technology Recruiter, Analog, Semiconductor Employees

Mayberry, A Good Place to Live

This is my tribute to Andy Griffith.



I don't know about you, but to me Andy Griffith was an American icon that symbolized all that was good in America. Known infamously as the Sheriff for Mayberry, N.C.

Who didn't want to live in Mayberry? A town representing things that were wholesome and family values found few and far between now.



Read more and see more in this article about this American Icon…



"What made 'The Andy Griffith Show' work was Andy Griffith himself -- the fact that he was of this dirt and had such deep respect for the people and places of his childhood. A character might be broadly eccentric, but the character had an ethical and moral base that allowed us to laugh with them and not at them. And Andy Griffith's the reason for that."



Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions, Executive Technology Recruiter Analog Semi-Conductor Employees

Apple wins the "Patent War" with Samsung, for now.

Yesterday a federal court judge made Apple smile. Samsung has been blocked from selling its Galaxy 10.1 tablet in the United States.

Judge Koh stated "Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right to compete unfairly, by flooding the market with infringing products."

It was ruled the Galaxy 10.1 device (run on Android operating system) infringes on Apple's patents. However, Apple was ordered to post more than $2 million bond if later Samsung proves that it did not infringe on Apple's 'tablet' patents.

~Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions, Executive Technology Recruiter Analog Semi-Conductor Employees

Source

Insight into today's semiconductor industry. I found in an interesting article by Wall Street, NY published June 8, 2012.

In the article, experts in the industry discuss what is to come and investor interest in this industry.

Trends for our industry include more focus on devices communicating with each other and using the internet for that communication (Device to device connection platforms by use of a web browser interface). A real world example of this would be using your iPad as an interface for controlling your 'network' environment throughout the cloud.

These types of devices and communication needs will demand a higher chip content, thus requiring more analog/mixed-signal chips. Increasing the demand for our services and products.

Our industry has seen a 4% growth in the last 12 months and I am excited to be a part of it!

Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-interview-president-ceo-director-160900007.htmlhttp://finance.yahoo.com/news/exclusive-interview-president-ceo-director-160900007.html

~Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions, Executive Technology Recruiter, www.analogsolutions.com

“Hiring good people is hard. Hiring great people is brutally hard! And yet nothing matters more in winning than getting the right people on the field.”
-Jack Welch, former CEO, GE

Well said!

"One machine can do the work of fifty ordinary men. No machine can do the work of one extraordinary man." --Elbert Hubbard

Gary Fowler, Analog Solutions