General instrument

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General Instrument ( GI for short ) was one of the largest manufacturers of semiconductor components and equipment for cable television in the United States . In 1997 General Instrument was split up and the name disappeared in 2000. a. the chip for various Pong replica game consoles ( AY-3-8500 ) and the legendary sound chip AY-3-8910 .

history

General Instrument was founded in 1948.

In 1987, General Instrument Microelectronics , the microelectronics business , was transformed into Microchip Technology Inc. , an independent company .

In 1997, General Instruments was split into three companies : the cable television division was spun off as Commscope . General Semiconductor emerged from the division for power semiconductors , which was acquired by Vishay Intertechnology in 2001 and integrated into Vishay Semiconductor . The department for broadband products formed the Next Level Systems , which renamed itself in 1998 to General Instrument . In 2000 Motorola took over the "new" General Instrument, which finally made the name disappear.

Donald Rumsfeld headed the company from 1990 to 1993.

Products

Microprocessors and microcontrollers

The PIC1655

General Instrument developed the 16-bit - microprocessors CP1600 / CP1610, for example, in Mattel Intellivision were used.

The CP1600 processors were with input and output relatively inefficient and therefore received the 8-bit - microcontroller PIC1650 ( Programmable Intelligent Computer should) as an adjunct processor that input and output accept. This PIC1650 is the first model in the PICmicro family, which Microchip continues to develop and produce to this day.

Sound chips

GI was also known for the AY-3-8910 sound chips , which were used in most arcade games and some home computers. The chip was also manufactured under license by Yamaha as YM-2149, slightly modified.

Game chips (selection)

Other chips

  • AY-1-5050 7-stage divider
  • AY-3-8915 color processor, 16 colors (in Mattel's Intellivision )
  • AY-3-8203 TV channel selection chip
  • AY-5-1317 Chord Generator
  • SP0256 voice chip


Web links

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