Interlink Partners

The nature of the electronics food chain means that long-term differentiation is difficult. Some companies have it easier: specialized analog, a worldwide franchise in processor design, specialized memory architectures for example. But the bulk of semiconductor companies, while they may start with a strongly differentiated product, quickly find themselves operating in a standards-based, commodity-ridden business environment.

Standards are good: they help get technology adopted. But if your products are simply implementations of the standard, they are subject to commoditization, which leads to pricing pressure and low customer loyalty.

The challenge is that hardware design wins only last one generation, and you have to be the best in some meaningful sense to win each time. A purely hardware-based strategy for differentiation means you have to be clearly the best, generation after generation. You have to be the best in functionality, power consumption, level of integration, and price.

That’s a tall order for any company. It’s also hard to maintain, generation after generation.

Interlink Partners bring a deep understanding of the dynamics of semiconductors and the electronics ecosystem, from startup to Fortune 500, and from analog to digital SoC. From this experience we have distilled a set of processes for optimizing semiconductor companies in terms of a wide range of factors:

• Fundamental product differentiation
• Roadmapping
• Ecosystem plays
• Adjunct capabilities to extend the value proposition
• User community leverage
• System development enablement
• Engagement in standards development
• Market positioning and message strategy

Each of these areas represent significant and powerful ways to increase the stickiness and market power of your semiconductor products.

Our methodology is customized to your needs, combining executive interviews, practical workshops, hands-on strategy development, and executive support for implementation.

For more information and a confidential diagnostic interview, please contact us.

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