Dr. Henry Samueli, Broadcom co-founder and chief technology officer gave his annual discourse, The Story of Broadcom How a UCLA Professor Became a Successful Entrepreneur on Thursday, March 6 in the McDonnell Douglas Engineering Auditorium as part of the Winter Entrepreneurship Seminar Series hosted by the department of engineering. As an alumnus and former professor of electrical engineering at UCLA, Dr. Samueli continues to vocally and financially support the engineering sciences of UCLA and, more visibly, of UCI.

Broadcom, which is headquartered in Irvine, has designed and developed semiconductors for the electronics communication industry since 1991. It was a point of pride for the co-founder to state that nearly 99.98 percent of all internet traffic crosses at least one Broadcom chip.

To introduce the background of telecommunications, Dr. Samueli stated the fact that there are more connected devices today than people, with over 7 billion connected devices today. Yet, Dr. Samueli maintained that none of this technology would have developed without the invention of the semiconductor, which he believes has created more impact on society, than any other invention in the past 100 years.

A semiconductor is the core material of all electronic circuits, presently composed of silicon (hence the Bay area nickname, Silicon Valley), which works simultaneously as a conductor and insulator of electricity. Their function was critical to the invention of transistors in the 1950s, which expedited the relay of information through electronic waves and current. Without these advancements, the modern computer would have never come into existence.

Accompanied by friendly graphs and slideshow animations, Dr. Samueli explained the incredible pace of semiconductor advancements, which are patterned on processor chips with increasing efficiency and parvitude.

I dont know if there is any industry in the world, at any time, of any kind, that has seen a factor of a million improvement, ever, or even in a 40 year window.

Yet he did not believe the exponential growth could sustain itself for much longer.

The bottom line is Moores law is slowing down, and coming to an end, he stated. My estimate is in the next 10 to 15 years.

He continued to explain limitations and inventions in the 80s and 90s and at one point elicited laughter from the audience, when his slideshow interjected with the tinny beeps and ringing of the notoriously slow internet modem dial-up connection process.

When people saw that brick wall of limitations, thats kind of when Broadcom entered the market, Dr. Samueli said.

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