GSA's 2008 semicon award recipients

SAN JOSE, USA: The Global Semiconductor Alliance (GSA) has announced the recipients of its 2008 awards, which are presented each year to outstanding semiconductor companies across the globe that have demonstrated excellence through their success, vision and strategy in the industry.

The 2008 awards were presented at the GSA Awards Dinner Celebration, held on Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008, in Santa Clara.

GSA’s most prestigious award, “The Dr. Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership Award,” was presented to Dr. Eli Harari, co-founder, chairman and CEO of SanDisk Corp. The leadership award recognizes individuals for their exceptional contributions to drive the development, innovation, growth and long-term opportunities for the semiconductor industry.

Members of the semiconductor industry selected the “Most Respected Private, Emerging Public and Public Semiconductor Company Award” winners by identifying the companies they hold in highest regard in terms of products, vision and future opportunities. The 2008 privately held company winner is Open-Silicon Inc., while the emerging public company recipient is Cavium Networks. Two companies received recognition in the most respected public company category.  The most respected honors for a company with $500 million to $10 billion in annual sales was awarded to Xilinx Inc., and for a company with $10 billion or greater in annual sales was awarded to Intel.

The “Best Financially Managed Company Award” winner is MediaTek, Inc. It was presented to the company for their demonstration of the best overall financial performance based on a number of key financial metrics.

Private companies that have doubled their revenue over eight consecutive quarters ending June 2008 were eligible to receive the “Outstanding Financial Performance by a Private Semiconductor Company Award.” The two recipients are Ambarella and DisplayLink Corp.

GSA’s Venture Capital Advisory Council selects the “Start-Up to Watch Award” winner each year by identifying the company that has demonstrated the potential to positively change its market or the semiconductor industry in general through the innovative use of or a new application for semiconductor technology. This year’s winner is Tilera Corp.

The 2008 Awards Dinner Celebration was made possible through the support of the event’s title sponsor, UMC, as well as its additional sponsors: ARM, Advantest, Broadcom Corp., Cadence Design Systems, Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing, IBM, JP Morgan, MagnaChip Semiconductor, Marvell Semiconductor, NVIDIA, Oracle, QUALCOMM CDMA Technologies, Samsung Semiconductor, SAP, SMSC, Teradyne and TSMC, and media sponsor Pennwell Technology Group.