I was talking this week with Jim Handy, a widely recognized semiconductor analyst with Objective Analysis. We were discussing how common wisdom suggests that performance often comes with the added cost of increased power and inefficiency. A fast car is going to burn more gas. The quickest processor is going to consumer more watts of energy. It is often true.
I mentioned to Jim that our assumption was that Energy Star appliances and equipment, which many of our customers produce, would require low power memory devices. But a customer informed me that, on the contrary, they want us to provide them with the highest performance memory solutions. High performance lets them provide their customers with an “instant on” user experience when they initiate a task on equipment that is in a “deep sleep” mode.
This is counterintuitive, but the fact is, that low power consumption is achieved by putting equipment into deep sleep mode and our high performance NOR Flash memory is critical in enabling that “instant on” experience for users.
Jim reminded me of an Intel axiom called “HUGI”. It stands for Hurry Up and Get Idle. Sometimes it is actually more efficient to perform a task as quickly as possible so you can return to a state of no or low power consumption. The extra power you use during that short spike can result in an overall power savings because you were able get idle again more quickly.
Conventional wisdom doesn’t always prove to be right. You really need to understand your environment to know what’s most important to your customer and how you can differentiate from your competition by giving customers the ability to build a better end product.
