What Do Competition, Cooperation, & Standards Have in Common

We would have liked to headline this article with the statement 1+1Þ2, but mathematical formulas tend to scare readers away. The statement is also difficult to prove. However there is substantial circumstantial evidence of the truth of the statements 1+1>2 and 1+1<2.

For instance, just recently, an industrial association started to organize an event and asked three competing companies to help. Two of these companies believed in cooperation, which translates into the formula 1+1>2, and started to share information to get the event going. The third company had less confidence in this formula and tried to take a share of the cake too large to justify. The result? The third company was kicked out of the organization and the two others did it together and thereby acquired larger shares of the cake.

The integration of more sensors and functionality into MEMS packages proves that 1+1<2 in technology terms. Click to enlarge.

Another example of the validity of 1+1>2 occurred when one of the authors wanted to connect his PC to his mobile phone. He went to the shop and asked the price of the cable provided by the phone manufacturer. The answer was $50. Shocked, he decided to buy a Bluetooth adapter, which could do the same job, for $18. The relation to the formula? The company Ericsson that developed the Bluetooth technology could have kept the technology for itself. Instead, they made it available for general use, being a firm believer in standards and therefore in the formula 1+1>2.

So why then not use this formula but 1+1Þ2 instead? Well, engineers and those in production tend to use different mathematics than business people. Take, for instance, developers of MEMS sensors.

They are not just following the current trend of decreasing the package size, they are also finding solutions for miniaturization by adding increasingly more sensors and more functionality in one package, which can be represented by the formula 1+1<2. The best example is the latest Freescale tire pressure sensor which not only contains a pressure sensor, but also an MCU, a transmitter, an X-Y accelerometer, and a temperature sensor. Freescale’s sensor clearly proves that 1+1< 2.

And Freescale is not alone; take for instance the Irish company ChipSensors, which offers sensors with a combination of temperature, humidity, and light measurement modes, with and without microcontroller and RF interfaces. (CO2 measurement is not (yet) in their offering, otherwise they would have a complete room control unit in one package.) As such, ChipSensors clearly believes in 1+1<2.

Integration is becoming the keyword in the world of small products. Varioptic, a French developer of liquid lenses, is looking into the possibilities of integration of their lenses with CMOS sensor technology, again believing in 1+1<2.

Lastly, the European Nexus Microsystems Association, through a request from the European Commission, is setting up an assessment of the major barriers to commercialization and industrialization of microfluidics; one of the workshop topics will be integration (1+1< 2). Around the table we will find a broad range of companies and institutes discussing these issues and defining common goals and actions, another 1+1< 2, but its opportunities could be 1+1>2. Conclusion: the sum of 1+1 depends on your working environment: if you are a mathematician, an accountant, or a teacher, stick to 2 as an answer, but if business development or technology is your field, be more flexible.

—Patric Salomon, 4M2C PATRIC SALOMON GmbH, Germany
—Henne van Heeren, EnablingM3, The Netherlands