Electronics Weekly Electronics Design & Components Tech News
40 years ago it was RCA, King of the TV industry, which licensed TV technology to Japan and semiconductor process technology to Taiwan.
Licensing to Japan in the 70s was a $200-300 million business for RCA.
Then, as now, the licensing people held dark suspicions or the product people and vice versa.
According to Bernie Vonderschmitt,, the founder of Xilinx who, in the 70s, was the general manager of RCA’s semiconductor division ” the operating division people generally took the stance that the licensing people were giving away everything and producing our future competition.”
On the other hand, the licensing people, according to Vonderschmitt “knew that unless the product divisions were successful, the value perceived by licensees would be attenuated. So they were favourably inclined to the divisions being successful.”
The licensing people could afford to be generous because they had a much plusher life-style than the operating division people.
The licensing people flew first class and had lavish offices, big expense accounts and ate in posh restaurants. The operations guys had modest offices and flew economy.
But the most far reaching deal of all was RCA’s licensing of CMOS process technology to Taiwan in 1976. 40 years later Taiwan is well ahead of the USA in IC manufacturing output.
