Intel Corporation: The DRAM Decision

The novel “Guns Germs and Steel”, by Jared Diamond, discusses the affects that science and technology have on society and politics. His ideas are reflective of almost all societies we know today and his explanations dive deep into our world history to show the patterns that occur as innovation excels in cultures and societies. The topics of Diamond’s novel ranges from the time of hunter-gatherer societies to modern Eurasia.

Leo Marx, once a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Harvard graduate, wrote an article titled “Technology The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept”. In this article, the author explores the modern day definition of the word technology and argues that technology offers too broad of a definition and is ill fitting to describe all technical advancements and their creators. Technology can be defined as the branch of knowledge that deals with the creation and use of technical means and their interrelation with life, society, and the environment, drawing upon such subjects as industrial arts, engineering, applied science, and pure science (dictionary.com). On the other hand, it can

Led the PC microprocessor market and ousted competition through sole licensor decision: Post losing a contract to supply microprocessors to Apple, in early 1980s, Intel won a contract to provide the same to IBM for its PCs. IBM PCs were a huge success and catapulted Intel to gain market leadership. IBM initially forced Intel to license its product to other players to secure adequate supplies reducing Intel’s potential

By the early 1980, Intel’s total share in DRAM was barely 1% and manufacturing was restricted to one fab out of Intel’s eight fab, where the Japanese semiconductor companies had captured nearly half of the world memory market. There are several factors that forced Intel to exit the DRAM market, those are the same lessons learned.

William Pollard once said, "Learning and innovation go hand in hand. The arrogance of success is to think that what you did yesterday will be sufficient tomorrow." Maybe the generals of World War 1 (WW1) should have been told this when they used cavalry when they were outdated and rifles and machine guns were the weapons of this war. They found this out the hard way which sparked the time of technological innovations and changes that was WW1. The three technological innovations I will write about are machine guns, planes and tanks.

This case traces the strategic decisions of Intel Corporation which defined its evolution from being a start-up developer of semiconductor memory chips in 1968 to being the industry leader of microprocessors in 1997 when it ranked amongst the top five American companies and had stock market valuation of USD 113 billion.

This report discusses the case study ‘Intel Research: Exploring the Future [1], published in 2005 by the Harvard Business School. The discussion is divided into three different sections: overview, analysis and conclusion.

Known as Intel Corporation (Intel) is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. Intel's revenue base is one of the world's largest and most valuable semiconductor chip makers. Intel chipsets also the motherboard, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphic chips, embedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing it. Semiconductor pioneers Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore established it on July 18, 1968, and widely associated with the executive leadership and vision of Andrew Grove, Intel's advanced chip design capability with a leading-edge manufacturing combines capacity.

We should only take help if we need it right? I am arguing whether or not ram readiness should be an option for those who don't need it.Rolesville high school should have ram readiness be an option because some people don't need it although ram readiness is helpful for people who need to become stronger in certain areas that they struggle in but that is only for some people not everyone.

The world we live in today is much more technologically diverse than any other period of time throughout history. From this diversity sprouts a new type of economy, one that balances on the evolution of basic ideals that fluctuate depending on our advances in different fields. In the book, American Economy Since 1920: How It Worked, the author explains four recurring themes in business. One of those themes is the relentless of change. Throughout the course of history, whether it be due to extraordinary advances in technology or devastating economic downfalls, the world of business is always changing.

With each passing year, current technologies continue to evolve or change while new technology or innovations emerge that, in some instances, profoundly change markets, societies, or ways of living. For all organizations, to include the military, the persistent change of technology means that organizations must also evolve and change accordingly. Based on research by Accenture’s Paul Nunes and Tim Breene in 2011, only 7 percent of companies that cease to grow ever survive over the long term, which serves as a strong warning for any organization about the need to change. In addition to technological change, the military faces many other challenges as well. The most significant challenges include budgetary constraints, mandated drawdowns in personnel strength, and numerous mission demands across the globe.

Technology contributes immensely to the field of warfare. However, it is not the sole source of innovation. Exceedingly, it is the need for new or improving methods that force change. Subsequently technology is not the root of innovation, rather it is a contributing factor. The true driving force for innovation is necessity. No saying best describes this aspect than the quote from Plato’s book The Republic, “a true creator is necessity, which is the mother of our invention.”

In one and half month the single word of one mathematician has turned into a worldwide campaign against us. AMD, Cyrix, and Nexgen are benefiting most from these events. They proved to have become quicker in manufacturing clones of our innovative products. Given this shorter time to market, they may jump on this opportunity to deliver Pentium clones any time. Our strategy to stop competitors copying our new products was heavy patent protection for the Pentium brand, however if our brand image is continually damaged to such extent, that protection would not give us the competitive advantage we expected. Although we have been the chips of choice for most of users, with the current negative publicity, the competitors may find their niche and expand their market share. Cost of switching from one type of processor to another (for example from Intel to AMD) is not significant for computer manufacturers due to the modular nature of this product. We know that this flaw would not affect any significant portion of the personal users (about 3.7 millions chips sold). The business users with heavy calculation needs such as engineering and specifically financial sectors would

Intel excels at top-down innovation, where highly differentiated components and electronics command a high gross margin relative to competitors, enabling faster design wins with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and development partners. This top-down innovation flow within Intel is so dominant, that the product design teams are significantly more productive than even the most advanced business process management teams (Segerstrom, 2007). Microprocessors and the follow-on Internet, networking, security and integrated motherboard products are all predicated on this top-down innovation cycle that leads to product line proliferation in Intel (Zimmerman, 2010). DRAMS were undifferentiated in structure, lacked industry standards that could create differentiated performance or compatibility based on adherence or alignment to standards or customer requirements (Nicholson, 1997). Intel chose to compete on the only other area of their core strength as a company, which is quality management and yield levels (Clark, Walz, Turner, Miszuk, 1993). Getting the yields for DRAMS to 60%, which for a brief period of time lead the global industry, only served to accelerate a very high level of commoditization in the industry (Voss, 1998).

IBM’s mainframe thinking- in terms of pricing and cost structure IBM tried to launch it in the middle market-and it bombed. It also blinded IBM to the much faster evolutionary path of the PC.