Poised to pounce [semiconductor industry]

This article briefly discusses the new applications for the semiconductor supplier Actel. After a last great fourth quarter in 2000, Actel, like every other semiconductor supplier today is just bouncing along the bottom. However, Actel's president John East believes the good times will come again, driven by the emergence of yet another "killer" application. East is encouraged by the possibilities of wireless connectivity between handheld appliances. A relatively small boom, perhaps spread across a number of related technologies, would suit a programmable logic supplier like Actel nicely. The article discusses the problems with ASICs for such applications and how they might be overcome.