The Recession´s Silver Lining

Countless research institutions contributed to the digital, wireless, and mobile technologies that underpin our modern world. But none contributed more than Bell Telephone Laboratories, which logged an astonishing share of the key advances of the 20th century, including the transistor, the cellphone, the digital signal processor, the laser, the Unix operating system, and motionpicture sound. We no longer have Bell Labs to fund research with long-term payback. That has prompted many to wonder: Who will pay for such research now, and where will it be done? We say: Governments and corporations must share the burden, and they must do it in structured collaborations among universities, companies, and government agencies in which intellectual property is freely available to all participants. We also say, the sooner we can get started, the better. The recession has left R&D spending in free fall. This year, the global semiconductor industry is expected to spend just US $200 billion on research-$50 billion less than in 2008. And times are really tough in the semiconductor equipment industry, whose R&D operations will shrivel like a salted leech from $34 billion in 2007 down to a pitiful $10 billion in 2009.