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All the finger-pointing and fault-finding over the state's troubled data center contract has technology analyst Tom Starnes wondering if Texas and IBM want this marriage to work.

"It's like they don't want to be together, and that's bothersome to me," said Starnes, who has been researching public-private technology partnerships, including Texas' $863 million data center consolidation project.

Breaking up, Starnes said, will do no one any good. IBM Corp.'s business reputation would take a hit, he said. And the state would have to start all over again with another vendor to merge the data centers of 28 state agencies into two updated and secure facilities. There is no guarantee the next relationship will work any better, Starnes said. In the meantime, the agencies are stuck in a technological limbo.

In letter, IBM says state to blame for trouble with data center deal            -Kate Alexander   Austin American-Statesman   July 21, 2010

... The last year has seen essentially every major processor company add or expand multicore processors in their repertoire.  A few are improved versions of earlier dual cores while others are fresh new multiple-births.  Why are there so many multicore offerings now?  The simple answer is that to stay on the performance treadmill that Moore’s Law so aptly described, multicore is the only viable option.  But there are different approaches within the multicore movement, and many have been utilized for years for a more delicate operation, perhaps right in your pocket... <entire article>

Multicore processors: Now a movement  
-Tom Starnes   EETimes   Sept. 27, 2010

"Sometimes when you deal with parts of the world where intellectual property rights are not held in as much high esteem as here ... the more in-house design and production you have, the more things you have in control," Tom Starnes, an industry analyst at Objective Analysis, told MacNewsWorld. "It's a good and a smart thing for a company to try to get better control over many aspects of the critical parts of their end products." ...

"PA Semi ... and the Intrinsity guys are a bunch of real smart people," Starnes pointed out. "It may very well be that Apple's trying to get higher performance out of their processors than they can out of standard CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor) techniques the rest of the world could be using."

Will the Feds Sour Apple's Juice?   -Richard Adhikari   Mac News World   May 5, 2010

"Engineers will work it out... Just give us our toys and let us go to work."

Apollo: The Epic Journey that Launched a Generation of Engineers / Forum: Why I became an engineer   
EETimes  June 23, 2009

"The extremely low sleep current and numerous wake-up features of Microchip’s new nanoWatt XLP microcontrollers should be ideal for battery-operated devices, which actually spend most of the time asleep," said Tom Starnes, embedded processor analyst at the semiconductor research firm Objective Analysis. "The interest in the market for such low-power processors, for use in consumer to industrial applications, is really on the rise."

Microchip Technology Debuts nanoWatt XLP Microcontrollers With World’s Lowest Sleep Current   Reuters   April 23, 2009

News and Events Quotes References In Print Opinions Source Current Events Conferences Interviews

"Facing the challenges of power forces us to be far more efficient in everything about our designs," said analyst Tom Starnes of market research firm Objective Analysis.  ...

Nonetheless, added Starnes, the chip industry has always found ways to meet its serious challenges and will do so now. "There’s so much business riding on continued advancements in semiconductors," he said, "that the problems will be resolved."

Will Power Problems Curtail Processor Progress?    -Neal Leavitt    IEEE's Computer    May 2012

"It's a relief of debt burden for them, but it's not the magic bullet for them either," said Tom Starnes, an analyst for Objective Analysis. "It was something necessary for them to move on, but it's not going to help them create more technology for smartphones or next video games or tablets or anything like that."

It's the booming markets of microprocessor technology that Freescale needs to focus on, rather than relying on small, steady growth in its core embedded technology industry, Starnes said. A new management direction and focus can certainly help.

Freescale Semiconductor Launches IPO    
-Chandler Harris   Information Week   
                                      May 26, 2011

The outlook for semiconductors and electronic end-equipment for 2012 is cloudy. With grim economic predictions dominating global commerce, consumers, businesses, and governments have been unable to move forward with much confidence the last couple of years...

The push for green electronics has created an area of growth — and demand for semiconductors...

Chips and end-equipment based on ARM cores should accelerate. Apple has come to dominate some well-established markets by putting the "i" first (I, the user) in the name as well as the consumer product. The Android OS may allow other OEMs to give Apple a run for its money...

Objective Analysis looks for a 10% decline for semiconductors in 2012, a mild recovery around the middle of 2013, and finally strong growth (over 20%) to follow in 2014.  <full article>

Clouds Loom On The 2012 Semiconductor Horizon             -Tom Starnes, Jim Handy             Electronic Design    Dec. 27, 2011

"Analog Devices is pretty solid in high-quality analogue, though they seem to have backed away from the digital signal processing and microcontrollers/ processors space that they were into five to 15 years ago," Tom Starnes, an analyst at Objective Analysis, told ZDNet UK.

"What might make some sense
[with the Lyric Semiconductor] acquisition is Analog Devices continuing to pursue cellular and communications technologies that often use exotic algorithms for extracting hard data out of messy real-world signals and beefing up performance in the process," he added.

Probability chip start-up bought by Analog Devices    
-Jack Clark   ZDNet UK   June 15, 2011

Flash memory completely dominates microcontrollers (MCUs) now, but memory considerations have become more complex as the processors have advanced to 32-bit architectures and ... exotic peripherals ... make the MCU more of a system-on-a-chip (SoC) encompassing advanced motor control, graphical user inter-faces (GUIs), and networking... <entire article>

Memory Considerations for Faster MCUs
-Tom Starnes
   DigiKey TechZone   Jan. 18, 2012

"The concept that you can have a very small processor doing things like maintenance that doesn't require a big honker processor, and you can have another, specialty processor working maybe on graphics, and another one that's the mainstream one, and mixing them up, certainly in a system and now even in an SoC – you're going to see a whole lot more of that kind of approach..." <from a 06:30 video interview>

Trends in ARM-Based Products with Strategy Sanity
-Tom Starnes with Bill Wong of ED
      engineeringTV.com         Jan. 25, 2012

Even More to Say ...

How Soon Can The New Decade Start?   Electronic Design   Jan. 7, 2010

ARM Achieves 10 Billion Processor Milestone   
International Business Times   Jan. 22, 2008

Freescale CEO announces his resignation    
-Kirk Ladendorf   Austin American-Statesman    Feb. 8, 2008

Getting past the hype - Synapse instant-on wireless mesh network technology really works   March 10, 2008

"The design of a truly low-power electronic system is a multi-level problem and requires a systematic strategy to eliminate unneeded consumption. . . As with many aspects of electronic design, the burden mostly rests on the chips and their designers."  [entire article]

Find your low-power path   
-Tom Starnes   EDA Tech Forum   April 2009

Tom Starnes, an Austin-based consultant, said Samsung should have no problem finding people to hire in view of layoffs at some other semiconductor companies in the city. "There should be plenty of people available," he says.

Samsung Factory Shows Surprising Logic   
-Don Clark  Wall Street Journal  June 9, 2010

"I literally asked a couple of MCU competitors about the renewed Renesas and they were unconcerned," said Tom Starnes, an analyst with Objective-Analysis. "They didn't like that there would be a new larger (vendor) to overcome for them to rise in the rankings tables, but they don't fear losing business."

Clearly, Renesas' rivals don't want to pump up the Japanese firm. "On the other hand, what would you think competitors would say: 'Damn, that new Renesas is going to cream us or we've had a tiger team working on a defense for six months,'" the analyst said.

There are other issues beyond MPUs. "I have previously given a position that the (new) Renesas will have difficulty working with the maze of similar and overlapping products, organization, and resources," Starnes said. "I don't know that the current Renesas hasn't shown the sort of pruning that other chip vendors have gone through."

Renesas tips MCU roadmap, but are rivals worried?   -Mark LaPedus   EETimes   
May 7, 2010

Merging with NEC's MCU operations would give this one vendor an unheard-of 30 percent market share of microcontrollers in a market where the biggest of 30 vendors barely trip into double-digit market shares, said Tom Starnes, an analyst with market researcher Objective Analysis.

"Although there may indeed be merger talks between Renesas and NEC, we see little of the traditional benefits from a prospective merger between these two firms," Starnes said in a report. "It is no small chore to gain a benefit from the merger of two large microcontroller vendors."

There are more negatives than positives in such a deal. "Considering the broad offering of today's Renesas as well as NEC, most of the products seem to overlap rather than provide new synergies," he said. "Without paring down of overlapping families, it will be difficult to provide much financial gain."

There are other problems. "Manufacturing costs can be improved by driving more chips through the fabs, but first any newly-acquired chips have to be reconfigured for the new process node in the fab -- a very resource-intensive effort. Two companies cannot just be slapped together and see immediate, or even short-term financial benefits," he argued.

Does Renesas-NEC Electronics merger make sense?   -Mark LaPedus   EETimes   April 17, 2009

"Technology evolves in spite of the economy," said Tom Starnes, analyst at market research firm Objective Analysis. "The excitement in the air at ESC [Embedded Systems Conference] Silicon Valley is a good indicator of the electronics industry's upturn. I'm sure the embedded engineering community went home from ESC armed with a wealth of valuable knowledge."

EE Times Group's ESC Silicon Valley 2010 Raises Bar for Electronics Industry Events   UBM Press Release   May 10, 2010

"The PSoC is the only architecture that extends the concept of program-mability beyond instructions for the processor to configuring peripherals and customization of digital func- tions," said Tom Starnes, principal analyst at Objective Analysis in Austin, Texas. "Coupled with analog precision on-chip beyond that found in any other MCU, these highly-integrated PSoCs are more highly-programmable than any other chip. The addition of precision analog and the ARM Cortex processor to the family should bring the performance needed for any modern application."

Cypress PSoC 5 With ARM Cortex-M3   
IQ Online   Sept. 15, 2009

"You no longer have to be a network expert to make use of wireless technology, and can develop an application in a matter of days," said Tom Starnes, Processor Analyst, Objective Analysis.

Synapse Registers 500th SNAPs User   
Wireless Business & Technology   Sept. 17, 2009

     “Technology     evolves in spite     of the economy.”

 Tom Starnes                
 May 10, 2010

Tom Starnes had an interesting panel at ARM Techcon this year. The topic of the panel was Cloud Computing but at the end the conversation turned into a look at the competitive battle between Intel and ARM.

ARM Techcon – Is Cloud Computing Just a Dream and Intel vs. ARM  
GarySmithEDA Report   October 2009

Tom Starnes, a Texas technology analyst, isn't sympathetic.

"It's one thing if last week you were selling shoes at Macy's, but shouldn't you expect all of the problems going in?" he asked. "You should assume you probably weren't born the last time they bought computers."

But he also faults public officials for unreasonable expectations.

"You start out with this big toad," he said. "Just because you bring in the private sector, we're there to help, but we can't fix it all right away."   ...

Both Strichman and Starnes say public-private partnerships are still worth trying, but they noted that the best ones start off with modest goals and build on small but tangible successes.

Lessons from two states' computer woes   
-Christina Nuckols   
Virginian-Pilot   Dec. 5, 2010

Mobile-payment services must work on many types of phones and via the networks and billing services of many cellular-service providers, which adds complexity to the transaction process, said Tom Starnes, principal of market research firm Objective Analysis.

Payment Applications Make E-Commerce Mobile     -Neal Leavitt   IEEE Computer   December 2010

"This might be the approach being taken at Ixys, but they are not the only ones that are doing it," agreed analyst Tom Starnes, who follows the microcontroller market for Objective Analysis.

Starnes said there has been an ongoing trend to "bolt on" more analog and mixed-signal capabilities onto the MCU. But the problem with Zilog is obvious: It continues to live in the past.

Today, Zilog suffers from old offerings and an "antiquated ecosystem," Starnes said. "There is nothing wrong with the Z8 technology," he said. "It was great in its day. In 1981, they were a formidable competitor."

"In the late 1980s, Zilog lost the footrace," he said. "In the last five to 10 years, there have been a lot more competitors" in the MCU space.

Ixys revives Zilog amid a power trip   
-Mark LaPedus   EETimes   Dec. 4, 2010

"Nonetheless, we have reports of many dedicated semiconductor employees returning quickly to their places of business after securing their homes," wrote Tom Starnes, author of a March 24th Objective Analysis report. "Meantime, the increasing threat of radioactive emissions from stressed nuclear power plants has many people scrambling to get to the far end of the island." ...

Rolling blackouts, whether planned or not, are also an issue for an industry whose delicate processes require sustained conditions, Starnes added. ...

"Nobody wants a $35,000 car to be parked on a production line waiting for a shipment of $5.00 microcontrollers that are programmed properly, or a hit Christmas toy to be out of stock until after the New Year," wrote Starnes. ...

"It is hoped that Japan's semiconductor manufacturing, as well as the Japanese people, can get back on their feet quickly," wrote Starnes. The world needs them.

Effect of Japan Quake on Semiconductor Industry Still Unclear   -Michelle Maisto   eWeek.com    March 24, 2011

"Most of the automobile plants in Japan are currently shut down, though those could be probably be turned back on once the people can be rounded up. But the supply of microcontrollers, analog and sensor products to the automakers and of all chips to the vast consumer electronics industry based in Japan could put a real dent in production if these components can't be produced for a period of time.  

"There may be a zero-sum market out there, so European and American automakers may be able to serve the market for cars, and Korea or China may get a boost in serving the consumer electronics market. But it's better for everyone if those shifts in market are due to much better products being offered rather than elimination of competition due to tragedy."

Episode 4 – The Earthquake in Japan (audio- select Episode 4, then start ~5:00 and 8:00)
-Bill Wong    Engineering Radio by Electronic Design   Mar. 21, 2011

"People are used to how cell phones operate," said Tom Starnes, an embedded processor analyst with Objective Analysis. "They used to be able to blame it on the bad Internet connection, the bad cellular connection, that sort of thing. 4G kind of takes away some of that blame. Now there are some pretty fast ARM processors out there, but are they the equivalent of Intel's 1-GHz massive cache?"

Microsoft's Windows on ARM Better for Partners Than Us   
-Mark Hachman   PC Magazine   Jan. 5, 2011

The processor could be produced at multiple sites so supply won't be impacted by one or more sites going down, for example, Tom Starnes, an analyst at Objective Analysis, told MacNewsWorld. Or there could be enough built-up inventory in the channel to feed demand for a while, he speculated.

It's not likely that manufacturers can turn readily to alternative suppliers, Starnes said.

"Nobody will be able to switch over to a different processor in less than six months unless a parallel design has been underway for a long time, and who has the resources for that?" Starnes asked.

A Tale of Two iThings    -Richard Adhikari    MacNewsWorld    March 30, 2011

Microcontroller vendors have been taking care of your connectivity and communications needs. More and more serial channels, communications methods, and networking peripherals have been brought into the MCU as the market has called for it. Along with the hardware implementation, the chip vendors have been assembling the software that makes it work. Third-party software vendors step up to the plate to offer improved, more universal, customizable, and specialized communications software and protocol stacks. The result is a relatively easy and cost-effective means of adding greater connectivity to MCU-based equipment.  [entire article]

Your MCU is Just Starting to be Connected
-Tom Starnes   
Digi-Key's Tech-Zone Magazine   April 2011

Researcher Tom Starnes of Objective Analysis explained, "Of the $300B of semiconductor chips sold last year, nearly $50B were sold to or within Japan, but nearly 25 percent of the world's semiconductor production capacity is in Japan when you look at total square inches of silicon processed, so this is a vital region to the global industry. Additionally, over 60 percent of the silicon wafers that are the starting point for making a semiconductor chip are made in Japan, and these are sold all over the world."

Pro Audio Reacts to Japan Disaster    -Clive Young    ProSound News    Apr. 11, 2011

"These microcontrollers are different in small but important ways," said Tom Starnes, an analyst at Objective Analysis, a technology research firm. "That makes it very difficult to switch to alternate suppliers, at least not quickly." Switching could take six months or more, analysts say.

A Japanese Plant Struggles to Produce a Critical Auto Part    
-Andrew Pollack and Steve Lohr    
The New York Times    Apr. 27, 2011

Simply replacing MCU parts from one supplier to another is easier said than done. "I have heard of (MCU) shortages, indeed some from Renesas," said Tom Starnes, an analyst with Objective-Analysis. "Unfortunately re-qualifying products through different equipment and facilities takes time and effort by both vendor and OEM.  Such things are normally scheduled carefully so as to not disrupt product flow."

Microcontroller supply chain is out of control    -Mark LaPedus    EETimes    May 6, 2011

"Medfield is a small step closer," Tom Starnes, an analyst at semiconductor research firm Objective Analysis, told TheStreet. "[But] it's not like the grappling hook is over the wall and you know that you're in."

"The reason why ARM has done so well is because they are much more thrifty in terms of battery performance," said Starnes. "You can get away without screaming performance, but the battery needs to last all day."

Starnes, though, was unmoved by this [Smart TV] news. "To me, it's like fine, great, but who is buying that stuff?"

Has XScale left a bad taste for Intel? Quite possibly, says Starnes. "They did a superb job [with XScale] but the market didn't buy into it," he said. "I think that they are still struggling with that."

Intel Nips at Smartphone Market    
-James Rogers    TheStreet    June 9, 2011

"Products like microcontrollers and DSPs can't simply be swapped out for another chip, whether from the same vendor or another," said Tom Starnes, an embedded processor analyst at Objective Analysis in Austin, Texas. "The programs aren't easily transferable between processors, and even changing other chips like analog may introduce cost, quality, or reliability issues not originally anticipated."

Two Weeks After Japan Earthquake, IT Industry Faces Hurdles  -Martyn Williams    IDG News    Mar. 25, 2011

"The disrupted electricity, water, and transportation systems [following Japan's 9.0 earthquake] are certainly going to take some time to get back on track," said Tom Starnes, an analyst with Objective Analysis, in a report circulated Wednesday. "There are only so many spare parts lying around with which to fix things. Even far away from the earthquake zone, rolling electrical blackouts, scheduled or not, are hampering normal life."
 {from Editor’s lead-in note}

"Semiconductor manufacturing requires consistent, high-quality electricity, and disruptions in water and power may continue to affect semiconductor and end-equipment manufacturers even far from the earthquake area for some time to come," said Tom Starnes, an analyst with Objective Analysis, in a report circulated late Wednesday.

On Semi says two fabs still down    
-Dylan McGrath   EETimes    March 24, 2011

Tom Starnes, senior analyst for Objective Analysis, added that the USB design itself is cumbersome — what he calls "awkward compatibility."

"The shoulders on some USB plugs and devices prevent insertion in some devices and if you try to stack them or put them in too tight a space, then they don’t fit — kind of the reverse problem of the HDMI connector," said Starnes.

USB: 3.0 Taking Hold and Gearing for the Future      RTC Magazine    December 2012

Tom Starnes, embedded processor analyst at Objective Analysis, believes that Microchip has always done a good job "of making their MCUs accessible to 'the little guy' with excellent support and lots of little development kits." In Starnes' view, serving the smaller customer is "more of a mission at Microchip," while it's often a secondary goal to most vendors who concentrate almost exclusively on their biggest clients.

Talk from the hip at Microchip    
-Junko Yoshida    EE Times    May 7, 2012

Numerous MCU vendors have been using ARM-based microcontrollers to attract designers that tradi-tionally use 8- and 16-bit MCUs offer[ing] the appeal of the ARM architecture, 32-bit flexibility, low prices, a robust ecosystem, and multiple suppliers. Some of these MCU vendors also focus heavily on reducing power consumption, using many of the same techniques that Freescale is employing in Kinetis L.  <entire article, by subscription>

Kinetis L Challenges 16-bit Micros    
-Tom Starnes    Microprocessor Report    
July 16, 2012

It is disheartening to have to point to a poor economy across the globe as a significant drag on the health of the electronics industry for four years running… If the buzz about tablets and smartphones fires up sales as Christmas gifts – a very likely scenario – this could severely impair sales of something that looks like a productivity tool, even if it is a little more fun, e.g. an UltraBook with a touchscreen on Windows 8. Is the PC becoming the WC – the Work Computer?… Many silicon vendors have backed away from the cutthroat smart phone industry…

The last year saw bigger talk given to ever-more-powerful ARM processors, not just by multiplying the number of cores, but now moving to the 64-bit processor arena… One particularly nice thing about the effort put into reducing energy needs, is that every watt saved at the semiconductor has benefits and reduces many difficulties all the way back to the original conversion of energy from the Sun.  <entire article>

Ancient Aliens Fail: Electronics Industry Looks to 2013    -Tom Starnes, Jim Handy    Electronic Design    Dec. 17, 2012

32-bit MCUs have expanded to generate 45% of all MCU revenue… as ARM has taken a stronger foothold in MCUs. Cortex-M processor cores have spread among silicon vendors as the 32-bit architecture, made popular in licensable CPUs, attracts attention in self-contained MCUs. Many new ARM-based products reach down into 8- and 16-bit microcontroller territory, drawing a broader if less pricey application base.

Microcontrollers have continued to play a large role in managing and controlling power consumed by other components and systems while, like other electronic components, reducing their own power consumption. … Peripherals are still blossoming as MCUs [and] the coming year may see some traditional MCU leaders, like Freescale and Renesas, return to their former glory, while newer upstarts like Silicon Labs and Energy Micro continue to make their mark as well. <entire article, by subscription>

32-Bit Microcontrollers Hit New Lows   -Tom Starnes    Microprocessor Report    Jan. 7, 2013

"Inserting the popular Cortex-M0 processor core into the highly-customizable logic and analog circuitry of Cypress's PSoC products makes a very appealing combination for applications with unique I/O requirements that warrant a higher performance processor or the widely-used ARM architecture," said Tom Starnes, Principal Analyst with semiconductor market research firm Objective Analysis. "The trim PSoC 4 with the highly optimized Cortex-M0 processor makes it easier to step up from 8- and 16-bit or proprietary MCU architectures."

Cypress PSoC 4 architecture claims the industry's lowest-power ARM Cortex-M0-based devices for embedded designs    
-Paul Buckley    EETimes    Mar. 21, 2013

"ARM was being cagey about a variety of specifics about their current endeavor into 64-bits. They were in Intel's back yard and no need to give the competition too much ammo too early in the game," said Tom Starnes, senior analyst with Objective Analysis.

Next Stop for Windows 8: 64-bit ARM Processors?  -Andy Patrizio   DesktopReview    Nov. 20, 2012

Indeed, the issue of power consumption coupled with a new challenger in ARM in the server space has forced Intel to rethink its strategy, said Tom Starnes, a microprocessor analyst also with Objective Analysis.

"Intel was traditionally focused on performance, performance, performance, but there are apps that don't need the highest screaming performance and power consumption has become a big issue," Starnes said.

Meanwhile, ARM has improved its chip performance and it is an architecture known to be conservative in power consumption, Starnes said.

"They have pushed their way into the low end server business and it's a business that Intel wants to protect," Starnes said.

… Plus, ARM is at a disadvantage in the Intel-dominated server-space, just as Intel's Atom processor is the underdog in the mobile device space where ARM devices lead, Starnes said.

Intel roadmap adds low power, high density chips for micro servers    -Bridget Botelho    TechTarget    July 23, 2013

Tom Starnes, analyst at Objective Analysis, which focuses on semiconductor market research, said firms can still deliver differentiated products with the ARM architecture...

"There is a built-in ecosystem," Starnes said. Software personnel know how to use the architecture so it is incumbent on a company to have products that are different from its competitors, he continued. Freescale has "tremendous expertise" Starnes said...

Starnes said he was impressed when [Gregg] Lowe was hired [as CEO]. The executive has a good background as an engineer, he explained. Texas Instruments, like Freescale, was built on solid engineers, and Lowe will command respect from the rank and file employees, Starnes said.

Freescale Semiconductor looks to ARM strategy    -Ed Mullane, Larry Rothman    dealReporter    Mar. 19, 2013

2014 should be a banner year for semiconductors with revenue forecast to grow 20% or more. Demand is strong despite softness in PCs as consumers shift spending to smart phones and tablets. Meanwhile Things on the Internet and sensors of all kinds will further drive markets and new applications.

In 2013, smart devices morphed into the Internet of Things (IoT), an all-inclusive term that tries to push the human to the side, engulfing Machine to Machine (M2M) connectivity and embracing Big Data and centralized computing for the 21st century. All high-tech C-level executives included "IoT" in their presentations last year.

Ultimately these Things are extending connectivity a little closer to person, possibly more conveniently. Rather than building humanoid robots we may be shifting to mechanizing the human being. One wonders how much augmentation the normal human can tolerate – or afford.  <entire article>

Forecast for Semiconductors and Things in 2014    -Tom Starnes & Jim Handy    Electronic Design    Dec. 19, 2013

"The best thing to get the economy going is for people to spend their money. Prices aren’t going to get any better." – Tom Starnes

According to Tom Starnes, an analyst at market research firm Objective Analysis, companies like Microchip Technology Inc. and Freescale Semiconductor Inc. offer microcontrollers that incorporate some analog circuits. They tend to be slower than the leading-edge microcontrollers because of the older process technology used for analog circuits, he said.

"When you get to where you are putting a lot of analog circuits on the device, it's really hard to get 100-megahertz speeds, let alone multiples of that," Starnes said.

Starnes noted that Silicon Laboratories Inc. also aggressively markets mixed-signal microcontrollers, which he described as successful microcontroller with strong analog capability.

Renesas readies mixed-signal MCUs   
-Dylan McGrath   EETimes   Oct. 14, 2010

ARM-based designs "are the natural thing to put in there," said analyst Tom Starnes with Objective Analysis, "because the ARM architecture from day one has been focused on power consumption. To me, ARM hasn't gone after (the server market) as hard as they should. There is a resistance to competing with that big ugly guy called Intel. Who wants to be in the cage with that gorilla?" [Smooth-Stone later changed its name to Calxeda, Inc.]

Chip startup Smooth-Stone raises $48M in backing    -Kirk Ladendorf   
Austin American-Statesman   Aug. 15, 2010