Some Comments
from Art Zias
I have had Art Zias review this material. In addition
to correcting some of the factual information, correcting my engineering
English and grammar Art has provided the following additional comments.
Art Zias, Dennis Dauenhauer
and the Sensor Industry.....
I characterize what I, Art Zias, brought to the silicon sensor business much
as I would the work of early technocrats in any embryonic technological business.
The early inventor-technologists bring touchy-feely product imitations into
existence. I did that. I did one step better than that because I'm an entrepreneur.
I invoked application engineering to transform the early devices into product
that addressed real applications. I'm proud of my role in bringing about the
applications transformation. But what Dennis Dauenhauer did was bring about
the next stage of the business. He completed my mission. Dennis transformed
the early products and their applications into generic products that served
the broad market, i.e. merchantable jellybeans. He turned an inside-out technology
based industry into an outside-in marketing based industry. If Art Zias was
the guy lucky enough to be inspired by a bottoms-up view of what scientists
at Bell Labs were doing about parasitic transduction, then Dennis Dauenhauer
was the guy, lucky enough to experience and participate in the earlier stages
of the sensor business, who made the best use of an MBA to bring some maturity
to the sensor business.
Art and Bob Noyce of
Intel fame
At National Semiconductor Art was the company representative for certain technical
discussions held at Stanford. During these group meetings Bob Noyce would be
seated next to Art. Art claims that Bob would only make positive comments to
the group as a whole and would whisper to Art when he had something negative
to say. Art, as is his character, had no inhibitions about presenting these
comments to the group. During one of these meetings there was a presentation
where it was clear to Art that Bob had something negative to convey, Bob would
lean over but not say anything. After a while Art finally asked Bob why he
was not commenting. Bob said "he's too big, he'll kill you Art." While
Intel has never strayed into the sensor business Bob Noyce felt that the sensor
business would someday be successful. If only the industry as a whole could
be half as successful as Intel.
Where Next for the Sensor
Industry?
I have omitted much of the material Art has expressed under this heading as
it deals with Art's belief that the market is heading for more use of ASIC's
in sensors and that customer specific products will tend to dominate the future
of the industry. This is an opinion I do not share in several respects both
relative to the ASIC premise and the market direction. Art does still content "the
day of the neoteric sensor product is almost upon us." This is a prediction
I have now heard for about twenty years. Art ends his comments with "the
worthy question is: who are the entrepreneurs et al for the next stage of business?" I
believe this is the most difficult question to answer as it appears the most
talented new engineers and managers are choosing industries other than the
sensor industry and without the talented people we have been able to attract
in the past working in the industry in the future we will not continue to make
significant progress.
The Header
Until the late seventies transducers was the word used to describe products
that, today, are referred to as either sensors or MEMS. Art Zias and I must
have argued for months over the use of the word "sensors." From
a pure engineering viewpoint "transducers" is the more appropriate,
technically correct descriptor. From a marketing view point sensors and now
MEMS attract more attention. Thus the reason for the header.
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