editor's blog
Subscribe Now

An Alliance of Alliance Members

The other day Mixel announced a MIPI Alliance ecosystem partnership. So… is that a branch of the MIPI Alliance? A new MIPI Alliance? I was a bit confused. (Not an infrequent state of mind for me, but never mind…)

This gets to some of the subtleties of industry partnerships. If you’re not careful, you can run afoul of anti-trust collusion laws. These laws were put in place because, in the olden days, big companies would get together and divide up territories and agree on pricing and basically guarantee that they would all get rich at the expense of consumers, who would be stuck in a market with only illusory competition. (In the current US climate, the laws are probably considered meddlesome job-killing regulation, so who knows if they will survive…)

So even if a few companies get together informally for the innocent purpose of setting standards, they can get into trouble. Which is why standards bodies are carefully crafted with legal structures, rules, and bylaws that ensure their members aren’t entangled in collusion troubles.

Ecosystems are a bit different: they’re typically made up not of peers, but of complementary businesses that don’t compete. The idea is to provide a complete solution; the goal is to increase sales for all the members. There are a lot of ecosystems, formal and informal, and, as far as I can tell, there aren’t any formal requirements (even though they might have some competing members, or members with unrelated competing divisions).

So, in this particular case, after confirming with Mixel, we have various members of the MIPI Alliance, a standards body, forming an unnamed ecosystem to drive sales.

More info in their press release

Leave a Reply

featured blogs
Mar 24, 2023
With CadenceCONNECT CFD less than a month away, now is the time to make your travel plans to join us at the Santa Clara Convention Center on 19 April for our biggest CFD event of the year. As a bonus, CadenceCONNECT CFD is co-located with the first day of CadenceLIVE Silicon ...
Mar 23, 2023
Explore AI chip architecture and learn how AI's requirements and applications shape AI optimized hardware design across processors, memory chips, and more. The post Why AI Requires a New Chip Architecture appeared first on New Horizons for Chip Design....
Mar 10, 2023
A proven guide to enable project managers to successfully take over ongoing projects and get the work done!...

featured video

First CXL 2.0 IP Interoperability Demo with Compliance Tests

Sponsored by Synopsys

In this video, Sr. R&D Engineer Rehan Iqbal, will guide you through Synopsys CXL IP passing compliance tests and demonstrating our seamless interoperability with Teladyne LeCroy Z516 Exerciser. This first-of-its-kind interoperability demo is a testament to Synopsys' commitment to delivering reliable IP solutions.

Learn more about Synopsys CXL here

featured chalk talk

Key Elements of Indoor Air Quality: Why Do They Matter and Why Do We Detect Them?
Sponsored by Mouser Electronics and Sensirion
Measuring indoor air pollution is a valuable tool to monitor our health and productivity. In this episode of Chalk Talk, Amelia Dalton and Timothy Kennedy from Sensirion discuss the what, how, and why of indoor air quality testing and how the all in one air quality sensor called Sen5X from Sensirion can make measuring our indoor air quality easier than ever before.
Jun 23, 2022
33,033 views