The current debate about the efficacy of going from IDM to fab-lite was addressed some years ago by the founder and former CEO of Bookham Technology, Andrew Rickman.

"I was reading in the paper that a McKinsey report said there would be a complete stratification of the chip industry, that manufacturing would become a cheap man's activity, and all the intellectual power would go into the design of things. Manufacturing would just become a service, and there'd be all these virtual companies," says Rickman.

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