Semiconductors
While consumers are familiar with "Intel Inside" and may know about Moore's law, there is much more to understanding the semiconductor business and communicating its messages. It is important to understand the different technologies (analog or digital, embedded systems to systems on a chip, etc.), applications, and segments (fab or fabless; design, manufacture or assembler).

Most of the semiconductor companies in New England, for example, are fabless, so it is important to understand the business behind the technology. What's the company's IP strategy? How will it generate revenue? It takes some sophistication: Shipping 50 percent more chips one year over the previous year is great – unless you know that the price per chip has dropped by more than 50 percent. It is particularly important to understand the sector's business cycles, particularly during the down phase, and how the financial pressures impact the overall industry and influence story opportunities.

We launched several new technologies for Sand Video (now part of Broadcom), a recognized expert in next generation semiconductor video compression technology. Sand Video has been aggressive in developing a range of decoder cores and chips that can be used in cable and satellite TV set-top-boxes, DVD players and recorders, personal video recorders (PVRs), digital cameras and camcorders, cell phones and PDAs. We have supported the company through major announcements, including the industry's first-ever silicon high definition real-time decoder chip. We have generated lots of positive coverage, including in EE Times, CommsDesign, Network World Fusion, and other outlets. One EBN article carried the headline: "Sand Video ups ante in decoder sector." Mass High Tech was impressed; in Dec. 2003, it wrote: "Sand Video Has the Key to Delivering Mobile Video." In fact, our work for Sand Video was credited by its senior management with raising the company's visibility enough to capture Broadcom's attention.

In addition, we have worked on power management integrated circuits, embedded solutions, broadband integrated circuits, communications and storage semiconductors as well as major distributors. Our team helped one semiconductor client go public in April 2000, making it one of the few successful IPOs after the dot-com crash. We booked media tours targeted to the business press and established relationships with key influencers. For a start-up broadband manufacturer, we helped it announce new rounds of funding that got covered in The Wall Street Journal, Red Herring, and The Daily Deal.

Our team's experience includes stints as head of communications for IBM research, promoting the company's R&D successes in semiconductor technology and materials science (specifically in silicon, silicon germanium, gallium arsenide and other related compounds) and as director of marketing for ON Semiconductor, developing messaging around the company's broadband and power management semiconductor products.