What's in a Hi-Tech Name? ...Ask Intel

By Paul L. Plansky, Contributing Editor

While people's names, place names, product names, and company names are not the actual entities described, these arbitrary labels can evoke very powerful responses, create unique identities, and, in the case of the "Pentium" brand name and "Intel Inside" program, forge a megabucks market dominance. Take "Silicon Valley," for example. Once mostly abundant farmland filled with fruit orchards, Silicon Valley today grows chips, software, telecom and computer networks, and a host of IC-based systems. In fact, based on current trends, it is probably not too far-fetched to expect a name change down the road to "Internet Valley."

The cognomen Silicon Valley was popularized by the late Don Hoeffler in the early 1970s when he was a reporter for Electronic News. He later perpetuated it in his own IC industry newsletter, earning the name, if not the newsletter, global recognition.

Attracted by lower labor rates and housing costs, chip enclaves are thriving in Silicon Ranch (Texas), Silicon Desert (Arizona), Silicon Mountain (Colorado), Silicon Forest (Northwest), and Silicon Beach (Florida). Overseas, there's Silicon Island (Japan), Silicon Harbor (Hong Kong) and Silicon Glen (Scotland).

Moore-Noyce or 'More Noise'?

When it comes to selecting company names, it doesn't seem like most chipmakers invested much time or money in the process. Because many chip company founders came out of engineering, their handles tend to be logical, if not poetic. Intel. for example, was derived from INTegrated ELectronics. The story goes that Intel's founders were going to call it "Moore-Noyce" Electronics, but that it sounded too much like "More Noise."

Atmel stands for Advanced Technology: MEmory and Logic. Signetics (now Philips Semiconductors), one of the Valley's earliest chip ventures, is telescoped from SIGnal NETwork ICS. Vitelic, since merged with Mosel of Taiwan, means Very InTELligent ICs. Perhaps only the founders of Zilog and a handful of its early employees know that the name means "The last word (letter Z) in Integrated LOGic."

Brooktree, the San Diego purveyor of RAMDACs which was absorbed by Rockwell, was named after Brooktree Road in Palos Verdes, Calif., where the firm's founder, Dr. Henry Katzenstein first discovered the D/A conversion algorithm while working in his garage at home. Chipmaker Cirrus Logic has one of the more creative names. It's taken from cirrus clouds, which, at 20,000 to 40,000 feet, stand for the highest level of chip integration.

Finally, let's see a show of hands by those of you who remember a Silicon Valley company known simply as NBK? The company grew silicon ingots and also produced some IC assembly equipment. What did NBK stand for? The real answer is lost to history. At the time, however, the answer was NoBody Knows!

If you're getting the impression that naming semiconductor companies has been more of a quirky ritual than a conscious attempt to provide a corporate brand, you're right. But that attitude appears to have changed since Intel committed hundreds of millions of dollars to its first Pentium campaign, spent mostly on television ads.

Larry Hayes, president of Hayes Marketing Communications in Campbell, Calif., says, "Brand building has been around forever. It's a consumer marketing strategy now being discovered by the high tech world." Hayes, who has represented such successful chipmakers as Linear Technology, cited the best example today of high tech branding as the "Intel Inside" program on which the company reportedly spends $250 million annually. Hayes said the Intel Inside program has generated almost $2 billion in worldwide co-op advertising since its inception in 1991.

Intel Chairman Andy Grove has gone on record saying that program is the best investment his company ever made. Intel's success has prompted several other high tech companies to recreate and build their corporate images, including AMD, Oracle, Hewlett-Packard, S3, and Cisco Systems. According to Hayes, these companies are putting millions of dollars to work to build brand loyalty "because, over time, it translates into increased market share and greater profits."

Brand Loyalty

If, indeed, brand loyalty can build enduring, profitable growth, perhaps the next wave of chip company startups will get an early jump on creating a favorable brand image„beginning with their company name.

Paul Plansky operates Genesis 3, a public relations and marketing agency in Palo Alto. A Silicon Valley veteran, he spent many years as a trade journalist, first at Electronic News, later with his own newsletter, Inside Chips, and then at HTE Research. Contact him at pplansky@ibm.net, or phone 650.325.7625.