It can be lonely at the top; it can also be lonely at the forefront, as Tundra has learned. Being a systems interconnect company at the moment is tough, but it is likely to get easier as the industry transitions towards outsourcing its interconnect requirements. Jim Roche, president, ceo and cofounder of Tundra Semiconductor, believes there is a 90:10 split between companies currently developing interconnect in house compared to those outsourcing it, but that this will reverse within around 10 years. Outsourcing interconnect is being adopted mainly because it isn't seen as a key differentiating function. Outsourcing - buying off the shelf products as opposed to developing a proprietary solution - is enabled by standards, such as PCI, RapidIO, Advanced Switching and the omnipresent Ethernet.
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