May 2005

Last month I likened PR to arranging flowers in vase and putting the good blooms in front. Ford Kanzler of Atmel was onto me like a shot and makes some well-founded arguments in this month’s SOAPBOX. If you have views on his views, or mine, let’s hear them; it’s great to get feeback. More web sites, portals and electronic initiatives this month. I’m off for a coffee with my copy of Electronics Weekly. Sometimes paper is the only thing that works.

Onto the news....

Electronic Engineering Times-Asia’s annual survey of IC design houses in Taiwan, mainland China and South Korea shows that average company revenue is expected to reach US$9.8 million in 2005—up 22 percent on 2004. More than 170 design firms participated in the study. The figure for Taiwan is expected to top US$12 million, up 13 percent on 2004; Korea to reach over US$8 million, up 57 percent on 2004; and China is expected to exceed US$8 million, up 27 percent. Commented Mark Saunderson, publisher of EE Times-Asia, “Despite many analysts forecasting growth for the global semiconductor market will be flat in 2006, Asia’s IC design industry remains confident. Demand for their services is rising as electronics makers across Asia increase production of mobile phones, flat-screen TVs and other popular consumer electronics.

The survey shows that Taiwan continues to lead regional design activity. Taiwan design houses undertook an average of 11 design projects in 2004 compared to 10 for mainland companies and six for Korea firms. However, Korea design firms have the lead in design complexity. Eighty-seven percent of surveyed Korea companies are using 0.25 micron or finer technologies in digital IC design, compared to 64 percent of mainland design firms and 63 percent of Taiwan companies. In analog design, 73 percent of Korea companies are using 0.25 micron or smaller process technologies, compared to 47 percent of Taiwan firms, and 42 percent of mainland China companies. Firms identified their main design challenges as reducing design cycle time (53 percent of all respondents); reducing design cost (50 percent); verifying intellectual property (12 percent); and securing intellectual property (10 percent). Complete survey results are available at www.eetasia.com.

CONTACTS
Editorial: Vivek Nanda, executive editor, eMedia Asia, vnanda@globalsources.com
Advertising: Chuck Armitage, US Sales Representative, cjarmitage@globalsources.com
Advertising: Patrick Flynn, European Sales representative, pflynn@cmp.com

Global Sources’ claims that the 10th Annual International IC-China Conference & Exhibition (IIC-China) attracted more than 24,000 engineers and technical managers— making it the largest in the event’s history. More than 170 exhibitors participated – up 44 percent on 2004, they say. Nine of the world’s largest semiconductor vendors participated including Freescale, Infineon, Intel, Philips, Renesas, Samsung, STMicroelectronics, Texas Instruments and Toshiba. Other notable exhibitors included Analog Devices, Fairchild Semiconductor and Sharp. The event generated a reported US$3.1 million revenue – up 107 percent from 2004. The IIC-China conference program addressed handheld devices, embedded systems, audio/video systems and networking. It featured speakers from leading global firms and attracted more than 560 engineers in Shenzhen, 460 in Beijing and 520 in Shanghai. 2006 dates are: Shanghai: March 6 to 7, Shanghai Mart; Shenzhen: March 10 to 11, Shenzhen Convention & Exhibition Center; Beijing: March 13 to 14, China World Trade Center. There’s more information at www.iicexpo.com.

CONTACTS
Sales: Chuck Armitage, US Sales Representative, cjarmitage@globalsources.com
Sales: Patrick Flynn, European Sales representative, pflynn@cmp.com

Global Sources will host Embedded Systems Conference-Taiwan and EDA & Test-Taiwan at Taipei’s International Convention Center this July 27 and 28. This is a new and larger venue, offering 71 percent more show floor than last year, according to Mark Saunderson, President of Global Sources’ Electronics Business Unit. Saunderson said: “The move to Taipei allows us to take advantage of the larger exhibition facilities provided by the International Convention Center. With two floors of exhibition space available, we can accommodate even more of Taiwan’s design community.“

Participants in the event include Agilent Technologies, MIPS Technologies, MontaVista Software, Rambus Inc., Renesas Technology and Wind River. Launched in 2001, ESC-Taiwan is part of the Embedded Systems Conference series and will be held in conjunction with the 13th EDA & Test-Taiwan Conference & Exhibition. EDA&T-Taiwan exhibitors included Maojet Technology, Mentor Graphics and Terasoft, and leading Taiwan chip foundries TSMC and UMC. ESC-Taiwan will also host two technology forums where industry experts will discuss the latest embedded solutions and how they address current design issues. The forum topics are “The future of processors for signal processing” and “Designing video into tomorrow’s consumer applications.” EDA&T-Taiwan will present the forum “Design strategies for a globalized design environment” which will bring together Taiwan’s IC design houses, EDA companies and fabs to discuss future business and design strategies for Taiwan.

CONTACTS
Sales: Chuck Armitage, US Sales Representative, cjarmitage@globalsources.com
Sales: Patrick Flynn, European Sales representative, pflynn@cmp.com

ECN magazine has appointed Pat Sullivan as new products editor. Pat joins from Medtech publishing where he held various technical editorial roles. He will be editing product stories for both the ECN web site and the print publication.

CONTACTS
Editorial: Patrick Sullivan, new products editor, patrick.sullivan@reedbusiness.com
Advertising: Steven Wirth, publishing director, swirth@reedbusiness.com

In an effort to educate the industry about the upcoming changes in environmental regulations, in particular European RoHS and WEEE directives, Electronic Design, Electronic Design Europe and Electronic Design China have begun a global initiative to provide reference resources to electronics manufacturers, design engineers and suppliers. The RoHS Resource Center, a dedicated microsite at www.elecdesign.com, contains information on the subject matter including a collection of in-depth articles from Electronic Design magazine and links to relevant technical papers and online resources. Currently available in the RoHS Resource Center is the first chapter of a new eBook titled Guide to New International Environmental Laws. Written by Electronic Design magazine Contributing Editor Ron Schneiderman, the Guide details the new environmental directives, the industry’s response and an outlook toward future policies. “The industry is facing a huge and potentially costly challenge with the European Union’s RoHS and WEEE directives,” said Schneiderman, “and it could be just the beginning. Ultimately, lead-free products will become the standard. And there are countries and companies that are ready to add more substances to their restricted list.” In conjunction with the RoHS Resource Center, Electronic Design is also forming a RoHS Advisory Board with membership consisting of industry-leading companies and Design Engineers. To download the Guide to New International Environmental Laws or for more information about Electronic Design’s RoHS Advisory Board, visit the RoHS Resource Center at www.elecdesign.com.

CONTACTS
Editorial: Mark David, editor-in-chief, mdavid@penton.com
Advertising: Bill Baumann, publisher, bbaumann@penton.com

Dave Bursky, Electronic Design’s (US) editor-at-large, was elected by the Communications Alumni Group of City College of New York for induction into their Hall of Fame. Dave was honoured with this prestigious award in recognition of his 32 years of service to trade journalism and the positive impact his coverage has provided the advancement of technology.

CONTACTS
Editorial: Mark David, mdavid@penton.com
Advertising: Bill Baumann, publisher, bbaumann@penton.com

Electronic Design launched its first two eBooks earlier this month (www.elecdesign.com/ebook/analog and www.elecdesign.com/rohs) and plans to aggressively develop this revenue source with other customers. “Our eBooks are very technical and comprised of a large volume of reference material, which makes them valuable to the reader for a long time. People will come back again and again to these books,” explained eMedia Product Manager Jason Brown.”A key selling point is that the editorial is all third-party information and not influenced by the sponsors. It is very important to keep the editorial of the highest quality and integrity.” The eBooks are converted to pdf and released one chapter per month. Visitors to www.elecdesign.com must register to gain access to the chapters and receive e-mail notification as new chapters are available. Each eBook is available online for one year.

CONTACTS
Advertising: Jason Brown jbrown@penton.com

Editor-in-chief of Chip Design magazine, John Blyler, has announced a series of new initiatives associated with the publication. Chip Design’s existing e-Newsletter, called “EDA Nation”, will be renamed to “Chip Designer”. John will be the editor. The format will change slightly to accommodate more succinct viewpoint and news/product pieces. It will also now include international news, links to technical articles, book reviews, event listings and more.

A new online subcription magazine called “iChip Design” has also been announced. Well-known industry technical expert, author and speaker Clive (Max) Maxfield will be the Executive Editor. As a complement to its print version sister publication, iChip Design online will provide more detailed technical articles, exclusive viewpoint pieces from Max, abstracts from analyst and fuller version of articles that may appear in Chip Design magazine. Other special features and benefits will be announced throughout the year. iChip Design online will be free to everyone during the introductory period. Afterwards, the yearly subscription cost will apply. Subscription emails will go out every two weeks, announcing the availability of content via the gold access area on the Chip Design website (www.chipdesignmag.com)

Finally, June 1 sees the launch of a new blog sphere on the Chip Design website. Pallab Chatterjee of Silicon Map will be just one of the key industry bloggers.

For more info, visit the Chip Design website (www.chipdesignmag.com).

CONTACTS
Editorial: John Blyler, editor-in-chief, jblyler@extensionmedia.com
Advertising: Karen Murray, sales director, kmurray@extensionmedia.com

Tony Barrett has decided to retire next month after working with pan-Nordic Elektronik i Norden as UK rep for almost 20 years. Dave Harvett joins the team as Tony’s replacement. Dave has long experience in media for the electronics industry and has worked on such titles as EPN and IEN.

CONTACTS
Editorial: Gunnar Lilliesköld, senior editor, gunnar.lillieskold@elinor.se
Advertising: Dave Harvett, sales representative UK, daveharvett@btconnect.com

The results of a current study amongst 964 elektroniknet.de users prove that design engineers and managers in the electronics industry focus on only a few websites, says publisher of elektroniknet.de, WEKA. The study showed that 42% of the participants visit on average no more than three websites per week, and 22% visit a maximum of only six. Just 15% of those surveyed claim to visit more than 10 websites per week.

The independent audit institute, IVW-Online, shows that with a monthly average of 360,000 page impressions, elektroniknet.de is the market leader in the German language electronics media segment. The closest competitor does not even have a quarter of the page impressions of elektroniknet.de, says WEKA.

Compared to the same period of 2004, elektroniknet.de achieved 35% more page impressions, and 50% more visits in the first quarter of 2005.

CONTACTS
Editorial: Gunther Klasche, editor-in-chief, gklasche@elektronik.de
Advertising: Matthaeus Hose, director of marketing, mhose@elektroniknet.de

Markt & Technik, the German language electronics title with a claimed total readership of 156,500, is publishing a special issue on “Distribution & Services” that will detail the latest trends in distribution, logistics and new services for design engineers and purchasers in electronics.

CONTACTS
Advertising: Martina Schmid, international sales, mschmid@markt-technik.de
Editorial: Carmen Skupin, editor, cskupin@markt-technik.de

A one day seminar on Wednesday 7th September 2005 at the University of Birmingham, UK, aims to bring together key speakers in this area, in a mix of oral and poster presentations. The posters will include a number from internationally know experts from outside the UK. Papers are requested on the following topics, although contributions outside these but within the scope of the title are also welcome.

· Multiband terminal antennas · Multiband base station antennas · Switched band antennas · Wideband or ultra wideband antennas · Multiband antenna arrays · Wideband or multiband antenna arrays · Multiband or wideband metamaterials

The organising committee invites offers of contributions in any of the proposed topic areas. Prospective authors should submit a one-page paper.

CONTACTS
Submissions: Peter Hall, p.s.hall@bham.ac.uk

AGS Media, publishers of Power Systems Design Europe & Power Systems Design China (both print and online) announce the new edition and launch of Power Systems Design, a monthly e-newsletter serving the North America power electronics market. Sponsorships are available in all 3 Power Systems Design e-newsletters, China, Europe and North America, AGS Media now delivers power marketer’s entrance into the three most significant global power electronics markets.

CONTACTS
Sponsorship: Julia Stocks, julia@powersystemsdesign.com
Editorial: Jim Graham, jim@powersystemsdesign.com

The August issue of monthly technical publication Prosessori is the Official Publication of Mittaus & testaus 2005 (Metering and Testing) Exhibition in Helsinki. Prosessori is also being distributed at Automation Days in Helsinki. The August issue will report widely on metering and testing, from USB to the most modern testing solutions. It also includes articles about accumulator techniques, EDA new launches and embedded programming.

CONTACTS
Editorial: Jari Peltoniemi, editor-in-chief, jari.peltoniemi@prosessori.fi
Advertising: Tapani Makela, sales manager, tapani.makela@sanomamagazines.fi

Starting from May, the users of The Electronics and Automation Newsletter, mailed by VNU Business Publications Italia to a target of 16.000 qualified professionals twice a month, can benefit from a free ‘e-Reader Service’ which allows them to receive more information about the products and services described in the newsletters, through direct contact with manufacturers and suppliers.

In order to gain access to this service users click the Reader Service link at the bottom of each news item. Registration is required. With this service, VNU will deliver contact details for product suppliers in real-time. The ‘e-Reader Service’ is also included in The Environment, Energy and Chemistry and in The Mechanics, Project Engineering and Components Newsletters, and will be soon extended to the contents of the website www.ilb2b.it. VNU Business Publications Italia claims to be the first publishing house in Europe to provide this service for on-line publications.

CONTACTS
Editorial: Gianluca Ricci, editorial coordinator, gianluca.ricci@bp.vnu.com
Advertising: Giuseppe De Gasperis, sales manager, giuseppe.degasperis@bp.vnu.com
Web: http://www.ilb2b.it

Machine-to-Machine Europe, a journal and supplier directory dedicated to machine communications, has been announced by publisher Webcomm.

Publisher, Jon Barrett, explained: “From remote diagnostics to denial-of-service, the benefits of machine-to-machine communication technologies are starting to touch industries ranging from office equipment and passenger vehicles to off-road plant and industrial robots.

“For early adopters and newcomers alike, the European M2M market can be a confusing array of standards, technologies, products, services and suppliers. Somewhere in this evolving mix is their ideal solution and Machine-to-Machine Europe is designed to help them find it. By combining strong, focussed editorial with a definitive supplier directory, Machine-to-Machine Europe, offers managing, financial and technical directors a single reference for analysing their engineering/commercial options and choosing their ideal products and suppliers.”

CONTACTS

Editorial and advertising: Jon Barrett, publisher, Jon at newsdesk@m2m-europe.com.

OpenEmedia is a new focussed web portal that offers electronics engineers and their management the latest technical information and news. It aims to provide accurate and concise business information using the latest computing and communications technology to research, produce and distribute industry newsletters that focus on specific electronics topics and target precise groups of business people, says the publisher, Stuart Blacklock.

Newsletter titles are OpenPower, OpenEmbedded, OpenMedical, OpenLead (lead-free), Open Automotive, OpenWireless and OpenSecurity.

CONTACTS
Advertising and sponsorship: Stuart Blacklock, publisher, Stuart@openemedia.com
Web: www.openemedia.com

Bob I pushed back regarding your recent comparison of public relations practice with how flowers are arranged in a vase primarily because it further erodes understanding of the value PR brings to marketing and promotion. Too many see PR as a lightweight task, practiced by know-nothings to little effect. This does poor service to a long history of highly effective, heavyweight thinking and accomplishment in the field, technology or otherwise. If anyone cared to even start researching it, they’d find that public relations can move mountains and poor PR practices or lack of public relations considerations to a business problem can be catastrophic. The Exxon Valdez disaster comes to mind.

Clearly PR has a poor public understanding and public image. In fact, to many, PR is tantamount to lying. And yes, amplifying what is desired be known by target audiences is an aspect of our work. There’s nothing inherently dishonest about that. I was tweaking your analogy to express my perspective about PR’s strategic value. Taking the vase of flowers analogy even further, PR is more about deciding to display flowers in a vase in the first place, as well as what sort of flowers and when or where they’re displayed. Strategy is usually inherent to PR success or failure.

In my career I’ve too often seen public relations brought in at the 11th hour to through some decoration on the marketing effort or more typically attempt to gain awareness and credibility with inadequate time and/or resources. Occasionally I’ve been highly successful when PR was used as strategic marketing tool, consistently applied with adequate resources. Then its true power to positively affect business outcomes becomes clear. However, its too often part of a “ready, fire, aim” promotional mix that’s operating without a clear strategy. I once began an article on strategy, with a quote from the Cheshire Cat in Louis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, “If you don’t care where you are going, it doesn’t make a difference which path you take.” Few marketers seem to get that simple point and rush to tactics without a plan. (”Let’s put out a Press Release!”) Additionally, going directly against human nature, they seem to believe that changing minds is a trivial and nearly instant event rather than a challenging and typically long-term process. Creating and maintaining reputations, which is PR’s primarily focus, is typically accomplished over time with considerable investment. That investment may also be lost in a second.

Ford Kanzler Corporate Public Relations Atmel Corporation San Jose, CA