Energy, Mobility, and the Cloud provide key opportunities for power-management solutions
eeNews Europe: In your first year as COO at Fairchild what aspects of the business do you think you have made progress with and where do you think you need to improve for the future?
Vijay Ullal: In our first year, the focus has been on operational efficiency and technology development. Our quality, reliability and flexibility of our supply chain have improved significantly. Our technology cycles of learning per year have improved dramatically. I am excited by the strong foundation we have built for new product development. In our second year, we will build on this foundation by improving the effectiveness of our sales and marketing as well as fine-tuning our new product development machine. In particular, we will leverage our strength in discretes to provide complete power management solutions.
eeNews Europe: What do you think will be the three major technology trends of 2014 and how will they impact Fairchild?
Vijay Ullal: We see a tremendous opportunity for us in the next decade in the megatrends of Energy, Mobility, and the Cloud.. Within each of these megatrends, we will excel at providing high-efficiency power-management and power-delivery solutions in industrial, mobility, automotive and clean energy. In the industrial markets, we see an acceleration of the trend towards complete system in a package. In Mobile, we will continue to see a transition from building-block products to niche analog systems on a chip. For the Cloud, there is a need for power-delivery solutions for data centers and ultra-low power networked wireless sensors for IoT applications.
We are energized by the opportunity to play an important role in solving the problems of increasing cost, pollution and climate change. These are a direct result of the increased use of energy caused by the rapid urbanization of the world’s population. Let me talk about a few examples of how we think we can impact the lives of a large part of this population.
For off-line power supplies, we aim to develop a ‘universal’ adapter that can be used for various portable devices. Imagine how convenient it would be if you only need to carry one adapter for most of your electronic devices, such as your smart phone, tablet, digital camera, portable multimedia player, and even your laptop.
For brushless DC (BLDC) motor control, the advanced variable-frequency control technology that Fairchild is developing will speed up the adoption of this technology by providing a flexible yet cost-effective solution. It will help us further reduce household power consumption. The demand for Green home appliances will in turn create huge demand for BLDC motors. Fairchild aims to catalyze the transition from AC induction to BLDC motors by introducing modular motor-control algorithms to help small and mid-size home appliance manufacturers in implementing BLDC motor-control applications. Other areas in which we are investing are inverters for solar applications and electrical vehicles.
Our mWSaver technology is helping power-supply designers achieve lower standby power in their applications, exceeding worldwide energy saving regulations in applications such as battery chargers, adapters and switch-mode power supplies for LCD TVs and printers.
The automotive market is demanding ever-higher energy efficiency. We continue to develop best-in-class solutions for electronic power steering, ignition and EV traction.
LED technology is another area expected to grow dramatically over the next several years, and Fairchild Semiconductor is uniquely equipped to address the semiconductor requirements of the evolving LED market. We are developing a growing portfolio of building blocks that can be used for LED Lighting solutions.
Fairchild will deliver power semiconductor solutions that have leading energy density, size and cost. We will do this by integrating leading MOSFET and IGBT technologies into advanced power modules. Our goal is to simplify the design process by providing a turn-key solution. We can do this because we have a unique combination of expertise in leading-edge process and packaging technology, IC design and knowledge of applications.
eeNews Europe: Fairchild’s industrial and Appliance sales are now 40 percent of overall sales and growing fastest – what technologies are driving the growth?
Vijay Ullal: Motor control is the largest segment of this market and consumes a significant percentage of the world’s energy. Consequently, there is a strong push across the world for energy efficiency driven by government regulatory mandates and by operators to reduce Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Specifically, a large percentage of energy consumption is attributed to HVAC, home appliances, pumps and fans which is the focus of Fairchild’s of investments.
eeNews Europe: Only Industrial and Automotive sectors appear to be following a growth curve in the past two years. Why?
Vijay Ullal: Our growth has occurred in sectors where our investments have coincided with favorable market dynamics. The industrial and automotive sectors have had the most pull for our power management products. Our strategy in the maturing mobile segment is to target profitable niches rather than participating in a hyper-competitive market with a broad portfolio of products.
eeNews Europe: Sales of SMP and IGBT products seem to be growing quickly. What is the reason for this?
Vijay Ullal: The reasons have been described earlier in this interview. IGBT growth is being driven by emerging applications such as Solar, HEV and EV and existing applications such as Motors and Appliances that are requiring higher voltage and power devices.
eeNews Europe: Are there any power management technologies that Fairchild sees as having created a leadership position?
Vijay Ullal: There are too many to list them all. I will mention a few. In low voltage MOSFET switches, we have a figure of merit that sets the standard for the industry. Ditto for SiC BJT switches. We also have an end-to-end solution for fast charging of mobile devices. We have an exciting, ultra-low power inertial sensor.
eeNews Europe: Do you expect to see an upturn in Fairchild’s sales in computing and consumer markets or will the decline in these sectors continue?
Vijay Ullal: We will continue to make investments in the most attractive sectors. We have moved our investments away from notebooks and displays. We will move these investments into areas that require innovative products such as Cloud and IoT.
eeNews Europe: Are there any technology innovations or market drivers that will help Fairchild make an upswing in the computing, consumer or mobile phone markets?
Vijay Ullal: Our innovation in power management and sensor technology will be a tailwind for us. The move of computing from PC to tablets will benefit us as we anticipated that change a couple of years ago. The emergence of cloud computing will play to our strengths in power management as well.
eeNews Europe: What are the most critical design challenges Fairchild is looking to address in automotive, industrial, power supplies and motion control applications?
Vijay Ullal: Fortuitously, it is the same across these applications. It is about achieving the highest level of energy efficiency and power density by applying the right combination of power device, control and integration via understanding of the system-level requirements.
eeNews Europe: Fairchild currently has no manufacturing sites in Europe – why? Is this likely to change?
Vijay Ullal: Our manufacturing sites have originated either from the spin-off from National Semiconductor or from acquisitions. Europe is very strong in technology and IP. It is possible that as we develop or acquire technology in Europe, it is possible that we may add a site in Europe.
eeNews Europe: Have any changes in the way Fairchild has developed its process and packaging technologies or test methodologies had an impact in improved sales?
Vijay Ullal: Yes. The first element is the continuous focus on quality in a holistic manner from design to package to test. The second element is to accelerate prototyping cycle so that we can quickly try out different approaches to solve a customer problem. The third element is to advance process technology where we have a proprietary advantage in power devices and integration both as a system in package as well as with a monolithic solution.
eeNews Europe: Are there any changes in the supply chain in Europe planned for 2014?
Vijay Ullal: There are many improvements to the supply chain at Fairchild but these are of a global nature rather than specific to Europe.
eeNews Europe: Is the calibre of new electronic engineering talent of sufficient quality in Europe compared to the rest of the world?
Vijay Ullal: Yes. In specific areas, it is superior.
eeNews Europe: Is it proving more difficult to recruit design engineers with sufficient skills in analog or mixed-signal technologies?
Vijay Ullal: On the contrary, our story of transformation is attracting some of the best analog and mixed-signal engineers in the industry.
eeNews Europe: What are Fairchild’s strategic plans to interact with design engineers and keep them abreast of new technology developments?
Vijay Ullal: Engineers are the heroes of any technology company and this is absolutely the case at Fairchild. We provide training and encourage attendance at seminars. We incentivize our engineers to come up with breakthroughs and defend our IP by filing for patents. Most importantly, we provide them the opportunity to work on exciting, new products.
eeNews Europe: Are there any innovations in online design tools we can expect to be introduced by Fairchild?
Vijay Ullal: Fairchild’s Power Supply WebDesigner – a suite of time-saving tools for designing and optimizing the system and power train – are designed to help new as well as experienced design engineers rapidly implement the latest technologies into their applications.
Fairchild is also working to help designers stay up to date in several ways, among them are online design tools and our Power Seminar Series.
Our Power Seminar Series, starting in Europe in September 2013, is a comprehensive one-day seminar providing rich technical and practical presentations that combine new, advanced power supply concepts, tutorial review of basic design principles, and “hands-on” real-world application examples.
The focus of Fairchild power seminars is on technologies and techniques, not products. It’s an opportunity for engineers looking for the latest advancements in power supply design, as well as those looking for a refresher. The seminars are in-depth theoretical and practical discussions on the pros and cons of different solutions to improve energy efficiency and system performance. Each of the presentations is accompanied by a technical paper with the full in-depth treatment of the topic for reference.
eeNews Europe: Which social media technologies will Fairchild look to deploy to maintain a dialogue with its engineering audience?
Vijay Ullal: We are looking at all the new social media to assess their effectiveness. This is still an evolving art for all companies, not just for those in the semiconductor industry. We will be conducting some interesting experiments over the next twelve months. Stay tuned.
Vijay Ullal has 30 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, including engineering and operations leadership positions at Intel Corporation, Saratoga Semiconductor and, most recently, Maxim Integrated Products, Inc., where he was Group President, Consumer Solutions Division from 2007 to April 2012.
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