Everything Old is New Again: Old research models for new-era semiconductor research

Bottom Line Up Front: Recently, large pots of federal funds have been set aside for chip research. A significant portion of these funds should find their way to research teams that operate like the best research groups from the prior, vertically-integrated era. Two ideal teams to learn from are BBN — the prime ARPAnet contractor — and CMU’s early autonomous vehicle teams, who laid much of the groundwork for the autonomous vehicle revolution. Both groups were ideally structured to solve ambitious, vertically-integrated computing problems with small teams of people with broad technical knowledge. Each org was aggressively novelty-seeking, solved practical problems for real users, and was managed in a firm-like fashion. Groups with this older operating model possess key comparative advantages that make them superior to academic labs and VC-funded firms in many applied research areas. This includes somewhat speculative projects in the early proof-of-concept stage, a key focus area for the

Bottom Line Up Front: Recently, large pots of federal funds have been set aside for chip research. A significant portion of these funds should find their way to research teams that operate like the best research groups from the prior, vertically-integrated era. Two ideal teams to learn from are BBN — the prime ARPAnet contractor — and CMU’s early autonomous vehicle teams, who laid much of the groundwork for the autonomous vehicle revolution. Both groups were ideally structured to solve ambitious, vertically-integrated computing problems with small teams of people with broad technical knowledge