Acceleration management: the semiconductor industry confronts the 21st century

In the recent generations of semiconductor devices, the semiconductor industry has been accelerating towards the limits of the physical sciences. As a consequence, technology managers in that industry face seven major challenges, which will threaten progress: process, complexity, performance, power, density, productivity, and quality / reliability. We believe that confronting these challenges requires a new approach to technology management both within organizations and between organizations that form the backbone of the industry. We call this new approach Acceleration Management. Acceleration Management first requires that firms cultivate deep technical knowledge and inspire creative solutions to seemingly insoluble technical problems. The second stage of Acceleration Management requires the necessary expertise to be pooled, which often demands inter-organizational cooperation. This paper explores these managerial imperatives and analyzes how new semiconductor firms - particularly in China - have created niches in the value chain even during a tumultuous time in the industry's history.