G. Dan Hutcheson

As Vice Chair and Senior Research Fellow, Dan brings decades of experience and insight to his position at TechInsights. He is an award-winning authority on the semiconductor industry, receiving SEMI's Sales and Marketing Excellence Award1 in 2012 for “empowering executives with tremendous strategic and tactical marketing value" through his e-letter, The Chip Insider® his book Maxims of Hi-Tech, and his many interviews of executives. Industry leaders have said, “Dan has methodically captured the essence of the industry and produced it in such a way for all to benefit ... he has been such an integral part of the industry for so long, it is difficult to imagine the industry without his contributions.”

Dan has a proven track record of developing economic models that accurately predict trends and is widely known for the forecasting of strategic infrastructure shifts. This includes his early-eighties development of the first factory cost-of-ownership models, multiple wafer size and lithography transitions, the rise of the fabless/foundry model to counter escalating fab costs, and the global shifts of semiconductor leadership. For example, the shift of the DRAM memory market from the United States to Japan in the early 1980s based on comparative advantage, then it’s shifting again to Korea in the 1990s, as well as the driving forces behind the rise of Flash Memory. His work has included hundreds of successful programs involving product development, launch, and positioning.

Dan’s public work on the industry has often focused on challenging predictions of the demise of Moore’s Law that date back decades by demonstrating how doomsayers have been outpaced by emergent behavior through the innate ability of technologists to innovate. This has included invited articles for Scientific American, the SIA, and the Plenary at the SPIE Advanced Lithography and Patterning conference and the chapters on industry economics in the Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology Handbook and High Dielectric Constant Materials, VLSI MOSFET Applications. He has also been the keynote or invited speaker at dozens of conferences.

He has authored numerous publications on the strategic and tactical aspects of how to succeed in the business of technology, which includes his book, Maxims of Hi-Tech Rules of Engagement for a Fast-Changing Environment or how to thrive in what is the extreme sport of business. He wrote two invited Scientific American articles: “Technology and Economics in the Semiconductor Industry”, January 1996 and “the first Nanochips.” April 2004. He wrote the chapter on “Semiconductor Economics” in the “Handbook of Semiconductor Manufacturing Technology,” 2000 and 2008. As well as the “Economic Implications of Moore’s Law” chapter in “High Dielectric Constant Materials, VLSI MOSFET Applications” book, 2005. He has also been a plenary, keynote, and invited speaker at dozens of conferences, including the Plenary at the SPIE Advanced Lithography Conference and the Robert S. Strauss Center’s Technology, Innovation and Global Security Speaker Series, which brought world-renowned experts to the University of Texas campus to discuss how to sustain innovation and better utilize modern technology to benefit an increasingly global economic and social system.

His pro bono work has included serving as an advisor on innovation to the White House Council of Economic Advisors, teaching invited courses on Manufacturing Economics and The Economics of the Internet at Stanford University, and serving on the Board of Advisors to the Extension School at UC Berkeley. His work at UC Berkeley helped the Extension School avoid wasting millions on capital acquisitions, as well as developing the ‘Lifelong Learning’ strategy that was key in turning this part of the University into a profit center for UC Berkeley. Dan holds two patents and a master’s degree in economics from San Jose State University. He is a senior member of the IEEE.