Critical mass from several perspectives

Sometimes, in order to accelerate the rate of progress, certain assets and milestones have to be in place. This is true for individuals as well as groups, corporations, and nations. It’s one thing to have the right people, another to have the right tools, and another to have the independence to forge a path forward. Of course, you must first have the right technology. 

Semiconductor and technology companies have a rougher time integrating all the needed pieces under one umbrella. There is a co-dependence on suppliers, service folks, integrators, distributors, sales and support, and even on competitors. 

This is even more important when a needed piece of your design has to come from outside. When any other entity, either a partner, or, a competitor supplies something you need, they have leverage. This means that your own destiny is oftentimes not in your own hands. 

But, slow and steady development and growth can cumulatively get you to a place of pseudo-independence. There will always be parts and services that it is not cost effective to perform, but this is okay as long as critical items are under one roof — it makes a difference.

When I was a design engineer working away on a myopic part of a larger overall system, I used to think as long as a reputable supplier had a good part I could use, I was in good shape. It wasn’t until a reputable supplier went belly-up and redesigns were needed that I learned that a company’s breadth as well as depth matters. 

This is always a possible issue with sole source parts, but what I learned later was to put my eggs in the baskets of those suppliers who had a lot of chickens. Diverse, interrelated, symbiotic, and bigger picture suppliers who could provide most or all the parts I needed with good documentation, eval kits, development environments, and application support win out over those who narrowly focus on one specific aspect of a technology. 

This is the case with Avago who is strongly and steadily developing and acquiring the know-how needed to position itself as a premier solutions provider for key technologies. Through steadfast work and progress, as well as leveraging expertise through acquisitions like PLX, Emulex, and Broadcom, Avago has steadily been able to demonstrate many firsts in the industry. 

Fig. 1 – Multi-Band, Multi-Standard, and multimedia (wireless, copper, fiber, network, etc.) integration is becoming increasingly more important as local environments (like a car) become multi-user globally connected hubs for example. 

Take for example their recent leadership roles with the first 16 G Fiber Channel SFP+, the first 30 G embedded Ser Des, the first precision optical isolation amplifier, the first 100 G optical transceivers,  the first LNA for SDAR systems, and so on. And being first doesn’t let you slack. The milestone one million shipped 25 G VCSEL shows that when you do it right, customers respond. 

But, there is more to the story. True it takes time to assimilate talent and move forward with next-generation ideas, but look at the pieces. With expertise in communications across the board, from telecom infrastructure and backbone, to vastly deployed fiber, to wireless, to server and storage, including hard disk technology, and ASICs, Avago is well poised to push the state-of-the-art forward across the entire network. 

This includes automotive solutions like sensors, encoders, couplers, displays, and switches/bridges/routers, cloud scale networking, Internet of things, and wireless charging. If any of your designs overlap with these areas of technology, keep Avago in mind when searching for well-engineered, documented, and supported components and solutions.