Objective Analysis: Analysts/Contact

OBJECTIVE ANALYSIS Semiconductor Market Research

ANALYSTS/CONTACT INFORMATION

Jim Handy

+1 (408) 356-2549
PO Box 440
Los Gatos, CA 95031-0440, USA

Jim.Handy (at) Objective-Analysis.com

Tom Starnes

+1 (512) 345-4074

Austin, Texas, USA

Tom.Starnes (at) Objective-Analysis.com
Lane Mason

+1 (650) 248-6178
PO Box 440
Los Gatos, CA 95031-0440, USA

Lane.Mason (at) Objective-Analysis.com

The Objective Analysis team, each with over 25 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, is capable of helping clients achieve the ultimate success from their business strategies by providing an experienced, unbiased viewpoint to develop winning strategies based upon experience and cold, hard facts. In their own circles, these analysts need no introduction. For those unfamiliar with their backgrounds, complete bios are available below.

JIM HANDY
Jim Handy, a widely recognized semiconductor analyst, comes to Objective Analysis with over 30 years in the electronics industry including 14 years as an industry analyst for Dataquest (now Gartner) and Semico Research.

His background includes marketing and design positions at market-leading suppliers including Intel, National Semiconductor, and Infineon.

A frequent presenter at trade shows, Mr. Handy is known for his widespread industry presence and volume of publication. He has written hundreds of articles for trade journals, Dataquest, Semico, and other prior employers, and is frequently interviewed and quoted in the electronics trade press and other media. Mr Handy writes the Chip Talk blog for Forbes online and contributes to two Objective Analysis blogs: The SSD Guy and The Memory Guy.

Mr. Handy has a strong technical leaning, with a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech, and is a patent holder in the field of cache memory design. He is the author of "The Cache Memory Book" (Harcourt Brace, 1993), the leading reference in the field. Handy also holds an MBA degree from the University of Phoenix. He has performed rigorous technical analysis on the economics of memory manufacturing and sales, discrediting some widely held theories while unveiling other true motivators of market behavior.

Mr. Handy is on the Advisory Board of the Flash Memory Summit, a member of the Embedded System Conference's Embedded Leader Community, a member of the Mass Storage Technical Working Group of the International Electronics Manufacturing Initiative (iNEMI), the chair of the iNEMI photovoltaics Product Emulator Group, a member of the Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) Solid State Storage Initiative (SSSI), and is a Leader in the Gerson Lehrman Group Councils of Advisors.

Mr. Handy can be contacted at Jim.Handy (at) Objective-Analysis.com, or by telephone at +1 (408) 356-2549

TOM STARNES
Tom Starnes is arguably the best-known embedded processor analyst in the semiconductor industry. Covering a range of products, Starnes' insight, coupled with his no-nonsense approach to processor and end-use analysis has led to his becoming one of the most sought-after consultants in the world of processors. It is through his hard-hitting insights that many key players in this industry have found their focus and refined their product strategies.

Mr. Starnes has spent more than 15 years analyzing the architectures, vendors, strategies, and markets of programmable microprocessors (MPU), microcontrollers (MCU), digital signal processors (DSP), and processor cores (intellectual property - IP) that play a quiet but vital role in anything electronic in our lives. He specializes in embedded systems, which means he is more interested in applications like cell phones, networking, automobiles, consumer electronics, office equipment, and industrial automation than in general PCs and servers. Mr. Starnes also provides key insight to the general trends of the semiconductor industry. He has extensive background in marketing strategies, product planning, product introduction, design-in processes, and customer interaction. He frequently advises organizations behind the Embedded Systems Conferences, ARM® Developers' Conference and similar industry forums, and he actively participates in the events.

Mr. Starnes comes to Objective Analysis after building a solid reputation as an analyst over ten years at Gartner Dataquest, preceded by a long tenure in Motorola's semiconductor operations (now, Freescale Semiconductors) in strategic, technical, and tactical marketing and management positions.

Starnes' deep understanding of this business can be traced to his training as an engineer and experience as a marketing manager in Motorola's microprocessor group. In his 15+ years at Motorola Starnes was instrumental in establishing the 68000 processor architecture as a compute engine for workstations and transitioning it to the dominant processor in the broader markets of embedded applications. Two years in Europe gave him solid exposure to international issues and two years marketing DSPs exposed him to these unique processors.

Academically, Mr. Starnes has a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Texas.

Mr. Starnes can be reached at Tom.Starnes (at) Objective-Analysis.com, or by telephone at +1 (512) 345-4074.

LANE MASON
Lane Mason is well-known as a semiconductor analyst with a keen insight into quantitive analysis. A highly-respected 30-year veteran of the semiconductor industry, Mr. Mason was the resident analyst at Denali Software (now a part of Cadence Design Automation) from 2000 - 2009, where he ran Denali's memory webcasts, the annual Denali MemCon conference, and contributed to the company's blogs and other activities that support the company's product and market development initiatives. His work at Denali followed a career as analyst and in marketing roles in the semiconductor memory business.

Known for his ability to see the whole picture clearly when confronted with a sea of numbers, Lane is the pragmatist's pragmatist, a characteristic that permeates his approach to product and technology strategy. Lane's approach to the semiconductor industry is "all business," leaving nothing to doubt about the difference between a company's current path and the changes required to achieve success. He has an uncanny way of accurately forecasting success and failure years before his predictions finally play out.

Mr. Mason's background includes ten years at Dataquest (now Gartner), five years as an independent consultant operating as "Viking Research," and five years in product and strategic marketing roles at IBM Microelectronics (where he helped to manage the company's SGRAM and first 256Mb DRAM) and at VIS Micro. As a consultant, he helped to formulate successful product and procurement strategies for leading technology companies including Apple Computer, National Semiconductor, STMicroelectronics, LG Semiconductor, and Celestica.

Mason holds a BS in Physics from the California Institute of Technology. He can be reached at Lane.Mason (at) Objective-Analysis.com, or by telephone at +1 (650) 248-6178.

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