“FORTIS FORTUNA ADIUVAT”

--- fortune favors the brave --- wrote the Roman dramatist Terence over two thousand years ago. Hedging his bets, the same writer also wrote “So many men, so many opinions!” Just as the distinction between “firm” and “inflexible” tends to depend on whether we are applying the adjective to ourselves or to somebody else, it is the infallible power of hindsight that usually decides whether a previous course of action is labelled as brave or reckless.

In the same way, it is widely accepted that companies that invest wisely during downturns tend to perform better during the subsequent recovery -- but how do we know what is a wise investment? Hindsight, again, has the perfect answer: they are the ones that have paid off and contributed to the increased performance.

In the real world, companies like ST that depend on technological innovation have to pursue many different avenues of research. Some of them, such as the multimillion dollar investments needed to develop the next generations of mainstream CMOS technology, are not at all optional; they are part of the price that has to be paid simply to stay in our chosen industry and the scale of the investment is determined by how the company wants to position itself against the rest of the industry. ST’s R&D track record throughout this worst downturn in the semiconductor industry’s history leaves no doubt on that score - we want to be first.

Other avenues are more speculative. In preparing this issue of Challenge, in which we wanted to focus on ST’s commitment to innovation, we spoke to ST researchers all over the world, from Singapore to San Diego, from Naples to New Delhi. What we have been able to print in these few pages is just a small cross-section of the tip of the iceberg; the topics that we simply did not have the space to write about and have had to postpone until future issues greatly outnumbered those that you can read about in this issue.

Some of the R&D avenues that ST is exploring will turn out to be dead-ends but that is an inevitable part of exploration. What matters is getting most of it right, most of the time and we are proud of our track record in investing wisely and - especially during this troubled phase of the industry - bravely. As this issue of Challenge demonstrates, our commitment to innovation remains undiminished.