Geert-Jan Davids I Profile
“Philips had a great reputation and most graduates, if you’d asked them, would have wanted to work there. I think I got the position because I had some scientific talent and some drive.”
GJ certainly has drive and he admits to being both ambitious and competitive. When I ask him what actually drives him, however, it’s not financial success, although that is important.
“While money is always at the back of your mind what drives me is the joy of doing what I do. That gives you the energy to achieve ‘success’, it’s a kind of ‘spiral of energy’. I love what I do and find it totally fascinating.”
While at Philips he took the opportunities
afforded him to work in semiconductors. “Much research is far removed from industry but I found the work I did at Philips, in terms of semiconductors, wasn’t. I worked on the wafer process, integrating all the steps and delivering products to chip designers for use in their circuits.” At Philips he worked on developing CCD memory cells for digital TV.
“My task was to develop digital video memory in CCD (charge couple devices), similar to DRAM. It was a relatively simple process but it fitted well with the demands of the video industry. However, Philips was ahead of the game and there wasn’t the anticipated demand. Everything we were working on then is now common-place today, but there wasn’t a market back in the 1980s.” The electronics market is never
predictable. Who, 15 years ago, would have predicted the success of Apple for example?
“It’s not just about having the right technology,” according to GJ, “but I would say companies need more patience for customer interest to turn into actual demand. And that is very difficult for businesses confronting the kinds of financial pressures that are so common today. I think there’s a problem with senior management in that they want results too soon and don’t always see a product’s full potential given time.
“By and large all big companies have a
problem with innovation. There’s too much short termism and a failure to properly nurture new technologies.”
Back in the 1980s the advent of the
Megaproject saw European semiconductor companies come together to develop a European semiconductor industry that could compete with the competition coming from the Far East.
“Philips got involved with this at a time when the general feeling was that Europe couldn’t ‘do’ microprocessors – it was seen as capital heavy and too risky. Today I’m much more confident about the state of the semiconductor industry in the US and Europe. We’ve relearned manufacturing and are holding up against the competition.” However, while there was considerable technology ‘push’ at Philips GJ felt that there was little market ‘pull’ for the products being developed. “Successful research programmes always need people who are customer facing while at the same time are able to interact with R&D.” Towards the end of the 1980s GJ spent a couple of years in the US at Philips’
operation in Sunnyvale, California. It was while he was there that he met and worked with Douglas McArthur, EquipIC’s VP Marketing.
“Doug joined Philips in 1988, in Sunnyvale, to work on their high performance BiCMOS process integration and device characterization and like many people I have worked with over the years, he joined me when I set up EquipIC.” When I ask GJ why that is, why people come and work with him he talks of his open management style. “My approach is to be open and l like to be challenged and criticised. I think criticism keeps your feet on the ground. I can also be very enthusiastic although that can have its downside in that it can be overwhelming for some.”
Taiwan and TSMC
After his time in the US GJ was asked by Philips to go to Taiwan and work with TSMC which Philips, working with the Taiwanese government, had helped to set up.
“Philips had a 25-30 percent stake in TSMC at the time and even had the option to buy a majority stake. Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese fabs were doing exceptional work at the time and I was told to find out how they were doing it. With my family I was relocated to Taiwan and was employed directly by TSMC.” With TSMC for 14 months GJ found that R&D and manufacturing worked more closely together than was the case at Philips.
“The Taiwanese ensured that someone stayed with a project from inception
through to volume production and manufacturing was put on a par with R&D. Among European companies there was a kind of disconnect between the two, and too much time was spent on projects that didn’t go anywhere. “You have to make sure that someone stays with a programme and that they have responsibility for maintaining the correct documentation and that knowledge and experience learned is not lost or wasted. It’s crucial that you have an interactive dialogue over time between design and process people.” After returning to Europe TSMC
approached him to see if he would set up a sales office for them in Europe. “The offer came at a time when I was looking for a new challenge and I saw the move as crucial to my career. The environment at Philips had changed and I made the move. I enjoyed the work I’ve always liked technical sales. Having worked with the company in Taiwan the transition went well. Based in Amsterdam I was tasked with developing the customer base.”
His success at TSMC raised his profile and a move to UMC as Vice-President of European Sales followed, but that coincided with the dotcom bubble bursting and GJ, among many others, found himself laid off.
“I found myself on the street and
realised that the only way I would make a living would be to go independent. That essentially was the reason for my founding of EquipIC.” The rest, as they say, is history. n
www.cieonline.co.uk
Components in Electronics
April 2012 15
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