Why aren't they locked in waiting games? Unlocking rules and the ecology of concepts in the semiconductor industry.

International audienceIn a multi-level perspective, regimes can be clearly described as long as they remain stable. To understand how regimes and niches interact during transition, the article contrasts two models of regimes in transition(s). The classical model of evolutionary niches suggests misalignments between rules and competition between niches. Transition management, technological innovation systems and works on transition pathways suggest a second model based on "unlocking rules", which support collective work on a structured set of emerging technologies. The latter model is illustrated with a case study on the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS)

Platform emergence in double unknown: Common challenge strategy

International audienceThe proposed paper deals with platform emergence in double unknown situations when technology and markets are highly uncertain. The interest in technological platform development to enable creation of products and processes that support present and future development of multiple options is widely recognized by practitioners and academics The existing literature considers already existing platforms and the development is based on exploiting this common platform core to build future markets and technological derivatives. However, when we are in double unknown situations, markets and technologies are highly uncertain and neither options, nor platform core are known. Thus, how can one ensure platform emergence in double unknown?The history of innovation promotes mostly singular challenge strategy to guide innovative development. But in certain sectors, like semiconductors, telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, the success of common challenge strategy applicable to several markets is more important than singular project success. Thus, which strategy to choose for innovative technological platform emergence? Why common challenge strategy appears to be so challenging and risky? The objective of the paper is to define what are the precise market and technological conditions that in certain situations lead to 1) develop common building block (common core) that facilitate all the others projects but don't provide access directly to the market 2) launch singular project exploration to emerge future platform core consequently. We attempt to address our research questions by formally describing each strategy and fabricating simple economical model to compare them. For simulation the data was created by taking into account specifics of real management situations and parameters were chosen based on the literature review. Then we illustrate the insights of the model through a case study of innovative technology development in semiconductor industry. The in-depth empirical case study was conducted in STMicroelectronics, one of the leaders in the semiconductor industry. The data for case study was gathered from advanced technology platform with several interdependent modules developed by company and introduced to the several markets after all. This paper contributes to existing work on platform emergence by introducing the strategy of platform core construction in double unknown based on future common challenge investigation

Advanced R&D for prepositioning strategies: the economics of platform shift in high technological velocity environments

International audienceThis paper addresses the design of platform, and more precisely the economics of platform shift in industries with high technological velocity. A platform consists in fixing some design dimensions (such as basic components, modules or processes) to get better performance on some other dimensions (flexibility of alternative development, enhanced variety, lower costs). Platform design consists in using a stock of design rules to find the right balance between fixed parameters and to be defined parameters for a certain time period. In high technological velocity (HTV) environment this time period can become very short so that platform renewal becomes critical. Moreover in this HTV environment, the stock of design rules becomes obsolete so that platform renewal can take several forms: this can range from "adaptation" (development activity makes the optimal use of existing stock) to "anticipation" (research activity produces new design rules to prepare the development of the next platform). In this paper we propose an economic model of platform renewal to compare these strategies, depending on the technological velocity. We show where anticipation and adaptation are relevant and what is the optimal level of research compared to development. Moreover we show that an alternate strategy, called "prepositioning", based on advanced R&D (ARD) and consisting in renewing the stock of design rules for several generations, would be interesting in case of HTV. We then illustrate its insights through a case study in a typical HTV industry, semiconductor industry. This enables us to propose an explanation of complex platform renewal strategies. The article closes with managerial implications and directions for further research in platform renewal

Innovation et compétition entre plateformes technologiques : vers une stratégie basée sur la pervasivité des technologies

International audienceL’objectif de cette communication est de mettre en évidence un nouveau cadre théorique pour penser la stratégie de compétition entre plateformes technologiques, indépendamment des logiques de marchés. Nous démontrons que la compétition ne se joue pas seulement sur le marché ; et qu’un des défis majeur de l’innovation technologique est d’être capable de subvertir les systèmes techniques des autres acteurs industriels (concurrents, fournisseurs, partenaires, clients, etc.). Nous présentons ensuite un nouveau critère de performance stratégique pour illustrer l’effet systémique d’une technologie sur l’espace des techniques : la pervasivité d’une technologie. Ce concept permet d’exprimer la faculté d’une invention technique à transformer et à réorganiser d’autres systèmes techniques ainsi que sa capacité à se diffuser à travers un large ensemble de technologies. Aussi, mener une stratégie de pervasivité technologique suppose de contrôler le degré de transformation des différents systèmes techniques, tout en augmentant le nombre de relations entre différents systèmes. Afin de tester nos hypothèses et en raison du caractère exploratoire de cette recherche, nous avons opté pour une étude de cas unique basée sur une approche qualitative. Nous illustrons notre modèle à travers l’étude de l’activité de conception et de développement de la technologie FD-SOI (Fully Depleted Silicon On Insulator) chez STMicroelectronics, leader européen dans l’industrie du semi-conducteur

Organiser la rupture continue dans un écosystème industriel : la loi de Moore comme patrimoine de création collective dans l’industrie des semi-conducteurs

International audienceDistribution électronique Cairn.info pour ESKA. © ESKA. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit

Industry-Wide Technology Road Mapping in Double Unknown - The Case of the Semiconductor Industry

International audienceMany companies face today a dilemma of "double unknown" when deciding where to put their research dollars: ignorance of which one among many possible technologies is most likely to emerge and similar ignorance of which one among many possible applications will most likely be a driver for the technology. Generic technologies are widely recognized to be beneficial for various market applications ([Bresnahan, Trajtenberg, 1995]; [Maine, Garsney, 2006]) and recent research results show that double unknown can lead companies to organize design activity to develop generic technologies suitable for several emerging markets application [Kokshagina, et al. 2012a]. However, the investigations so far focused on the level of the individual firm, while a "double unknown" situation is typically characterizing an industrial sector as a whole. This is in particular the case of the semiconductor industry: While the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors (ITRS) primary focus has been and still is the continuation of Moore's law, it introduced recently the "More than Moore" concept, to account for technologies which do not necessarily follow the CMOS miniaturization trends, and represent a growing part of the total silicon-based semiconductor market. The sheer diversity of both those technologies and their potential applications renders a roadmapping exercise very challenging. Nevertheless, given the benefits that roadmapping has brought to the semiconductor industry, the International Roadmap Committee (IRC) of the ITRS has decided to extend its activities to this new field. Which strategies do the ITRS experts implement to select which technologies to roadmap and which applications to target in double unknown? In this paper, we show that to design roadmaps for More than Moore technologies, the ITRS experts apply a strategy of "common unknown" [Kokshagina, et al. 2012a], along with additional community building activities specific to the situation of inter-firm collaboration

Assessing and Improving the Coverage of a Strategic Research Agenda: A Design Theory Approach

International audienceStrategic Research Agendas (SRA) bring to the research community a prospective and collective vision of a sector and are intended to provide directions for future research efforts. However, some promising innovative areas are not always foreseen in those documents, which raises the question of the relevance and adequacy of their coverage. While engineering design is often considered to translate SRA guidelines into product development, we believe it can also be of great help regarding the design of an SRA. In this paper, we will first address how to assess the scope of an SRA through a framework based on C-K theory, before exploring how to extend it, if need be. To answer those questions, we will examine a high-quality roadmap: the Electronic Components and Systems Strategic Research Agenda (ECS SRA). Our resulting method will provide us the means to assess SRA coverage and to ensure that interesting research areas are not forgotten unintentionally, in order to allow to a further enrichment of the document if needed

How design theories enable the design of generic technologies: Notion of generic concept and genericity improvement

International audienceGeneric technologies enable to create benefits across wide range of industrial applications. Though providing important insights on generic technologies commercialization, less attention was paid to generic technologies creation. Then, is it possible to design directly generic technologies? Can the intention to build genericity be expressed ex ante? The proposed study indicates that formal design theories provide powerful mechanism of genericity construction when the environments are initially fixed and partially unknown. It is demonstrated that starting point to design generic technology is a generic concept. In addition to a concept definition proposed by C-K theory, the descriptors associated to the domain of existence were added. The generic concept targets the existence domains that are not reduced to one solution but several of them both known or partially unknown. Moreover, it is highlighted that different descriptors of existence domain can lead to various genericity levels. The economic reasoning behind the genericity building provides insights on the dynamics of engineering systems

Absorptive capacity for radical innovation: A case study in the semiconductor industry

International audienceAbsorptive capacity is one of the most important constructs to emerge in organizational research in recent decades for gaining insight into the link between knowledge and innovation. In 1989, Cohen and Levinthal analyzed the role of R&D in this context and distinguished "information generation" and the "ability to assimilate and exploit existing information" for innovation purposes [5]. They proposed a model of this second, less recognized capacity. They define Absorptive Capacity (AC) as the organizational capability to organize value and assimilate external knowledge in order to increase firm innovativeness. They assume that AC is a dynamic capability that depends on prior related knowledge in the form and combines value recognition of the missing knowledge, its assimilation and application

REVISITING ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY WITH A DESIGN PERSPECTIVE.

International audienceWe examine how teams working on radical innovation develop a novel type of absorptive capacity (AC) to make use of external knowledge. In the setting of the semiconductor industry we compare AC in incremental innovation and AC in radical innovation, relying on the most recent theory of design reasoning. We are led to propose a framework of how radical innovation teams leverage external knowledge using a specific type of AC. AC in incremental innovation can be described as 'epistemic absorptive capacity' (EAC), based on a stable set of design rules to address pre-identified problems; AC in radical innovation, which we label 'conceptual absorptive capacity' (CAC), is based on 'refined visions' with three facets: 1 'rule-breaking', to move from known to out-of-the-box 2 'hook building', to overcome cognitive crises by linking the unknown to multiple cognitive references 3 'milieu stimulation', to support the creation of new knowledge in the milieu