Performance Evaluation and Case Study on MP3 Decoder Controller IC Design Companies

• Main Authors: Jungtai J. Lin, 林榮泰
• Other Authors: Hui-Min Chung
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/96476914443710747507

碩士 === 國立交通大學 === 管理學院高階主管管理碩士學程 === 96 === Taiwan’s IC design companies have been playing a very important role in the worldwide semiconductor industry. And in recent years, the Chinese government has also been very aggressive in promoting China’s IC design companies. Starting from 2001, the “Tenth Five-Year Economy Planning” encouraged China’s semiconductor industry development by providing various preferences on tax treatments or foreign investment, and the number of China’s IC design companies increased from 98 to 421 during the period of 2001 to 2004. Compared with competitors in US and Taiwan, the Chinese companies are generally less competitive, due to late entrance to market, limited number of experienced staffs, and weaker intellectual property portforlio. Among all the Chinese IC design companies, the Actions Semiconductor founded in 2001 has made very distinguished performance. US-based SigmaTel was the dominant player in providing the MP3 decoder controller IC for the popular portable MP3 players, but the late-coming Actions Semiconductor was able to catch up and has eventually become the market leader in the world. The main focus of this thesis is to analyze the competition and performance evaluation between these two companies, and the competition between these two companies based on the Technology Adoption Life Cycle model, combined with the understanding in China’s semiconductor industry development status and government policies, to find out the successful factors of Actions Semiconductor, and to provide some references on the competition strategies for Taiwan’s IC design companies.