14th Annual GSA Awards Dinner Celebration

Alisa Curry, Event Management Specialist, GSA
Jay Roecker, Event Marketing Specialist, GSA

On December 11, 2008, GSA hosted its 14th annual Awards Dinner Celebration at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, California. At the event, companies were recognized for demonstrating excellence in 2008. The theme of the evening, “Visualizing Success,” was mirrored in the success of the event that began with a cocktail reception and ended with a global audience of 1,300 industry executives. GSA was proud to recognize the achievements of several semiconductor companies.

As executive director of GSA, Jodi Shelton started the evening by greeting the guests and introducing Mark Edelstone of JP Morgan. Mark provided an overview of the new JP Morgan/GSA Semiconductor CEO Sentiment Index and reminded all CEOs in attendance to participate. After Mark’s speech, Jodi asked the audience to take a moment and remember those at SiPort.

Jodi then introduced the evening’s title Sponsor, UMC. Once UMC’s introductory video concluded, Tony Yu of UMC took the stage to introduce the keynote speaker, Chris Gardner.

Chris Gardner is most known for his New York Times bestselling autobiography, “The Pursuit of Happyness.” The book was later adapted for film with Will Smith playing Gardner in the movie. Gardner’s speech focused on the trials and tribulations of beating the odds and overcoming homelessness. Gardner’s story was a perfect introduction for this year’s awards celebration given the current economic climate.

Awards Ceremony

Joined by GSA’s board chairman Dr. Dwight Decker, Jodi returned to the stage and officially opened the awards ceremony. During their welcome, Jodi and Dwight touched on the current economic circumstances facing the industry, highlighting the fact that most of GSA membership has manageable inventory levels and cash on hand, making them a viable source for future investment.

Most Respected Emerging Public Semiconductor Company

The industry’s Most Respected Emerging Public Semiconductor Company award is designed to identify the company garnering the most respect of the industry in terms of its products, vision and future opportunities. Companies achieving up to $499 million in annual sales, their profitability and market capitalization, among other financial and product successes, are taken into consideration. GSA’s Awards Committee reviews all companies meeting the specified criteria and selects nominees based on performance and likelihood of success. Online voting takes place to allow members of the semiconductor industry to cast a ballot for the emerging public semiconductor company they most respect.

Behrooz Abdi, president and CEO of RMI, and Joep van Beurden, CEO of CSR, introduced the award with the following companies being nominated: Actel Corporation, Atheros Communications and Cavium Networks. The award went to Cavium Networks, a leading provider of highly integrated semiconductor products that enable intelligent processing in networking, communications, storage, wireless and security applications.

After the Most Respected Emerging Public Semiconductor Company award was given, Dennis Segers, GSA’s Emerging Company CEO (ECCEO) Council chairman and CEO of Tabula, spoke about the ECCEO Council’s desire to represent the needs of the emerging company and work with the supply chain to develop programs that will help the entire semiconductor ecosystem to grow. Among its initial efforts, the Council has established a working group focused on identifying electronic design automation (EDA) solutions for emerging companies, with the goal to promote and encourage the availability of EDA programs and tools for emerging companies.

Most Respected Private Semiconductor Company

The industry’s Most Respected Private Semiconductor Company award is designed to identify the private company garnering the most respect of the industry in terms of its products, vision and future opportunity. The GSA Awards Committee reviews all private semiconductor companies, and the selected companies are based on the Committee’s analysis of each company’s performance and likelihood of long-term success. Online voting takes place to allow members of the semiconductor industry, including chip companies and partners, to cast a ballot for the private semiconductor company they most respect.

John East, president and CEO of Actel, and Dr. Ping Wu, CEO, chairman and co-founder of Spreadtrum Communications, introduced the Most Respected Private Semiconductor Company award. Nominees in this category included eASIC Corporation, Freescale Semiconductor and Open-Silicon, the winner of the award. Open-Silicon’s CEO Naveed Sherwani accepted the award. Open-Silicon sets new standards for the predictability and reliability of ASICs to enable customers to differentiate their products through affordable custom silicon.

Outstanding Financial Performance by Private Semiconductor Companies

The top five private semiconductor companies, in terms of growth percentage, that double revenue over eight consecutive quarters are eligible to receive an award for their outstanding financial performance. Private semiconductor companies submit their confidential ballots directly to a designated consulting firm to determine which companies double revenue.

Moshe Gavrielov, president and CEO of Xilinx, and Mark Keene, managing director of Deutshe Bank, presented the Outstanding Financial Performance by Private Semiconductor Companies award to both Ambarella and DisplayLink Corporation. Ambarella’s CEO Fermi Wang and DisplayLink’s VP of strategic engineering and intellectual property (IP) Adrian van den Heever accepted the award. Ambarella is a leader in low-power, high-definition video compression and image processing semiconductors. Its products bring consumers unmatched high-definition video and digital still images together in one device. DisplayLink has reinvented the way computers talk with displays through the use of semiconductors and software. The company’s Universal Serial Bus (USB) graphics technology has significantly simplified the usability of multi-monitor computing.

Start-Up to Watch

The GSA Start-Up to Watch Awards Committee, which is comprised of members of the GSA Venture Capital Advisory Council and select serial entrepreneurs in the industry, identifies the semiconductor company that demonstrates the potential to positively change its market or the semiconductor industry, in general, through the innovative use of semiconductor technology or a new application for semiconductor technology. Companies taken into consideration must be fabless or an integrated device manufacturer (IDM) and generate $1 million to $5 million in revenue or be three to five years old.

Levy Gerzberg, president and CEO of Zoran Corporation, and Pete Rodriguez, president and CEO of Exar Corporation, introduced the Start-Up to Watch award after a brief video of the great Mugsy Bogues, a talented, but short NBA player. The video likened the nominated start-ups to Mugsy Bogues, as they had overcome the odds and gained stature in their respective fields. The nominees included Amalfi Semiconductor, Amimon Ltd, Audience, Stream Processors and the winner, Tilera Corporation. Omid Tahernia, president and CEO of Tilera Corporation, accepted the award. Tilera Corporation is a leader in highly scalable general-purpose, multi-core processors for the embedded market. Its general-purpose reduced instruction set computer (RISC) cores, architecture and standards-based tools provide a combination of performance, power efficiency and programming flexibility.

Following this award presentation, Dr. Nicky Lu, GSA’s Asia-Pacific Leadership Council chairman and president and CEO of Etron Technology, provided a brief update on the Asia-Pacific region, reporting that the region has continued to grow, and many companies have expanded or established a greater presence in Asia in the past year. He also noted that GSA signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA) in September 2008 to strengthen the existing relationship between the two organizations and broaden and enhance value and resources to their members. Dr. Lu was joined on stage by David Baillie, GSA’s Europe/Middle East/Africa (EMEA) Leadership Council chairman and CEO of CamSemi. Mr. Baillie gave an overview of the expansion of the EMEA Leadership Council and the overall advancement of GSA in the EMEA region, including the signing of a MOU with the National Microelectronics Institute (NMI).

Best Financially Managed Semiconductor Company

The Best Financially Managed Semiconductor Company award is designed to evaluate the financial health of public semiconductor companies based on a number of financial metrics. GSA and financial analysts evaluate each company against their peers, and the one with the best overall performance is determined the winner.

Lip Bu Tan, chairman and founder of Walden International and president and chief executive officer of Cadence Design Systems, introduced the award with Daniel Hoste, president and CEO of Tundra Semiconductor Corporation. The nominees were Analog Devices, Linear Technology Corporation and the winner, MediaTek. There to accept the award was MediaTek’s vice president Lawrence Loh. MediaTek is a leading fabless semiconductor company for wireless communications and digital media solutions. The company is a market leader and pioneer in cutting-edge system-on-chip (SOC) system solutions for wireless communications, high-definition digital TV, optical storage and high-definition DVD products.

Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company

The Most Respected Public Semiconductor Company award is designed to identify the public company garnering the most respect of the industry in terms of its products, vision and future opportunities. In addition to achieving sales above $500 million, a company’s profitability and market capitalization are considered. GSA’s Awards Committee reviews the companies meeting the criteria and selects the final list based on analysis of each company’s performance and likelihood of success in the industry. Online voting takes place to allow members of the semiconductor industry, including semiconductor companies and partners, to cast a ballot for the public semiconductor company they most respect.

David Bell, president and CEO of Intersil Corporation, along with Andrew Micallef, executive vice president at LSI Corporation, introduced this award. Nominees included in the $500 million to $10 billion category were Broadcom Corporation, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, and Xilinx, the winner of the award. Xilinx is a leader in complete programmable logic solutions. Its products include silicon, software, IP and development boards for the consumer, automotive, industrial, scientific, medical, aerospace and defense industries.

Next, the nominees included in the >=$10 billion category were presented by Qualcomm CDMA Technologies’ executive vice president and president Steve Mollenkopf and ARM’s CEO Warren East. The nominees in this category included Intel Corporation and Texas Instruments. Intel Corporation, the world leader in silicon innovation, was named the winner. Tim Lloyd, senior director at Intel Corporation, accepted the award. Intel Corporation develops technologies, products and initiatives to continually advance how people work and live.

Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award

The Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership award recognizes individuals, such as its namesake Dr. Morris Chang, for their exceptional contributions to drive the development, innovation, growth and long-term opportunities for the semiconductor industry. GSA was honored to present this year’s award to Dr. Eli Harari, founder, chairman and CEO of SanDisk.

Dr. Harari has been the CEO of SanDisk since 1988 when he founded the Sunnyvale-based company with his colleagues Sanjay Mehrotra and Jack Yuan. In 1994, SanDisk invented and produced the first marketed Flash memory card, the CompactFlash^® . Dr. Harari, a pioneer of non-volatile memory technology, has been a driving force in the electronics industry for over 30 years and holds more than 100 U.S. and foreign patents. Before founding SanDisk, he co-founded Waferscale Integration, oversaw the development and production of Intel’s first-generation stepper and dry etch technology, and held technical management positions at Hughes Aircraft and Honeywell.

Closing and Special Thanks

The festivities came to a close with the traditional champagne toast lead by Jodi Shelton.

GSA would like to thank the title sponsor UMC as well as ARM, Advantest, Broadcom, Cadence Design Systems, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, IBM, JP Morgan, MagnaChip Semiconductor, Marvell, NVIDIA, Oracle, Qualcomm CDMA Technologies, Samsung, SAP, SMSC, Teradyne, TSMC and our media sponsor PennWell.

Save the Date

GSA’s 2009 Awards Dinner Celebration has been scheduled for December 10, 2009 at the Santa Clara Convention Center. Mark your calendar for this premier event and visit www.gsaglobal.org/events for more information.

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