December 2012
VIEW FROM THE TOP

Ralph Quinsey
CEO, TriQuint Semiconductor, Inc.

Q: The importance of sustaining and developing technology has reached a point where states and cities are more actively building relationships with universities and recruiting high-tech companies. However, there continues to be a shortage of engineering graduates, especially those focusing on RF and microwave technology. What would your company do (or is doing) to help promote careers?

A: TriQuint understands the importance of developing engineering talent. We are committed to both the continuing education of our employees and working with universities in a variety of ways to develop new graduates. For example, we directly partner with distinguished academic institutions on critical technology development efforts, often co-funded by industry partners or government agencies like DARPA. This creates funding and research opportunities for professors and graduate students. Because we are a leading GaAs and GaN foundry services supplier, we have programs with several universities where we provide free “prototype runs” so design students can actually build and evaluate their RF designs. Lastly, we maintain an active internship program with several universities giving students the opportunity to gain real work experience before they graduate.

Q:For those of you serving the military market, what do you expect 2013 will bring in terms of opportunities in this sector?

A: There is real and valid concern today with fiscal discipline in governments around the world, including the United States. That notwithstanding, we still see strong demand for investment in mission critical applications such as radar and advanced communications. TriQuint is a leader in bringing new RF technologies to market, and I see a rising tide of demand related to high frequency/high power technologies such as GaN.

Q:If your company serves the commercial markets, are you encouraged by any particular emerging application or technology?

A: My view is we are still in the early stages of a fundamental shift in how the world interacts. In my lifetime we have witnessed tremendous change brought on first by the computer and then by the internet. With the rapid adoption of smartphones and other wirelessly connected devices, we are making the leap to a mobile internet. This brings the “always on, always connected” value proposition from a dream to a practical reality. First, the value and power of “always connected” can be seen with the explosion of “apps” and amazing changes in the world enabled by social networking. Additionally, the amount of information available to any individual on the planet, regardless of social or economic status, is becoming unlimited. The mobile internet doesn’t just level the playing field for new businesses; it makes the playing field many times larger. Our business is fueled by this growth of wireless connections and data movement around the planet. The mobile internet and the supporting infrastructure for data transport, although already a multibillion dollar opportunity, is still an emerging market.

Q: Last year, we asked what impact the global economic crisis was having on the markets you serve and on how you run your business. What is your current perspective?

A:We have a mixed approach. We are fiscally conservative by nature and continue to exercise that discipline. At the same time, we have chosen to invest in R&D and capacity to capture the long term growth we see with RF content expansion in three major areas: smartphones, network infrastructure and radar systems. 1) A smartphone has five to six times the RF content found in older generations of voice-only phones. While it seems like everyone already owns a smartphone, in 2012 we crossed one billion users of smartphones worldwide, according to Strategy Analytics. That is one in seven people on the planet, or only a 15% penetration rate. 2) All forms of data and information are being digitized and made available free or nearly free for anyone who has internet access. People and organizations are moving more content to the cloud. This is creating tens of exabytes of data movement each month, and increasing demand for our high performance infrastructure products to support network expansions and upgrades. Investment in infrastructure today is fueling the new economies of tomorrow. 3) As I mentioned earlier, we are actually seeing an uptick in demand for components that support high performance phased array radar systems. High performance aircraft, UAVs, force protection ground based systems, naval surveillance and commercial aviation are all critically dependent on advanced radar systems. As these systems become more cost effective, and because of the value they bring, we are seeing a shift in funding to support deployment.

Q: What countries or regions do you believe will provide the greatest growth potential for the wireless industry in 2013?

A:Our business supports worldwide demand and it is often difficult to determine exactly where our products end up. Certainly the majority of our shipments are to Asia because this is where the majority of consumer communications devices are assembled. On the consumption side, whereas developed countries now see cellular handset penetration at 85-95%, smartphones in the United States crossed only the 50% penetration level in Q3 of 2012. There is still great opportunity worldwide from smartphone growth. Looking at the wireless infrastructure market, much of it is transitioning to multi-standard base stations, but the key driver for investment is expanding LTE capability. The transition to LTE is happening faster than many analysts expected. Some countries such as Japan, Korea and the United States have been early adopters and will continue to invest. We see China as a major opportunity for TD-SCDMA, WCDMA and TD-LTE investment, all to support a very large opportunity for future smartphone sales. ♦