“The server world is changing,” said Lou di Nardo, CEO of Exar, at the Globalpress Summit in Santa Cruz, “the customers are defining the system they want. There’s a focus on low-power servers which is creating a discontinuity – programmability is one feature of that.”
An example is a switching regulator sold by Exar to the Taiwanese ODMs which are now making servers to the specs of the big users. “Ít was 12V in and whatever you want on four outputs,” said di Nardo.
With the big server buyers now by-passing the traditional server manufacturers and putting their customized specs straight into the hands of ODMs, the ODMs naturally want parts which offer maximum programmability so that they can make gear which meets as many of the specs as possible.
At AppliedMicro, which makes ARM-based server chips, Mike Major says: “Google, Microsoft and Facebook are all delivering their own specs." So introducing an element of programmability into server ICs allows the ODMs to make generalised product which is customisable for particular users.
Exar has also got its PowerXR power management ICs onto the boards of Calxeda – the manufacturer of ARM-based servers.
Di Nardo is the process of rejigging Exar. His aims are to get revenues of $45m a quarter from today’s $30m; to get gross margin up to 53-55% from today’s 47% and to get opex down from today’s 40% to 32-34%.
“In the September quarter we doubled the profit and grew 5%, and in the December quarter we had $3.97m operating income,” he says.
He’s recruited 12 analogue IC designers recently partly by being able to offer the carrot of a rising share price. “We have 20 ex-LTC design engineers,” said di Nardo.
