VLSI Technology
VLSI Technology, Inc was a company that designed, produced and sold application-specific integrated circuits (ASIC or custom chip for short ) as integrated circuits. The company was based in Silicon Valley at 1109 McKay Drive in San José (California) . Since the functions of these new microchips could no longer be manipulated and the manufacturing costs were lower, they were built into series devices as application-specific standard products (ASSP) to reduce costs . Founded in the late 1970s by Douglas Fairbairn, Jack Balletto, Dan Floyd and Gunnar Weslesen, VLSI Technology, together with LSI Logic, formed the main business area for application specific integrated circuits (ASIC).
History and Development
In 1982 Alfred J. Stein was appointed Chief Executive Officer of the company. VLSI then opened its first factory in San Jose and subsequently a second manufacturing facility in San Antonio , Texas . In 1983 the company went public. The company was later taken over by Philips Electronics and still exists today as part of NXP Semiconductors .
VLSI was one of the pioneers in electronic design automation and was a leading manufacturer of standard cells in the early 1980s. Before the introduction of the VLSI cell, production was primarily reserved for large companies in semiconductor technology such as AT&T and IBM . Through ASIC, VLSI made it possible to manufacture tailor-made chips to handle specific applications required for the respective task area.
VLSI's first major innovation was a workstation system that made it possible to design semiconductor products individually and effectively in order to design your own chips. With the introduction of this system in the 1980s, VLSI was able to increase their sales considerably in a short period of time. By the mid-1990s, VLSI had become a recognized market leader in the chipset business. The company designed and manufactured chips that linked basic logic components ( core logic ) in computers with various microprocessors and peripheral devices.
Global expansion
VLSI expanded into the US, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. One of the most important locations was in Tempe, Arizona , where a family of very successful chipsets were developed for the IBM PC . The Swedish company Ericsson was VLSI's largest customer in 1998. In the area of wireless products, VLSI is developing a number of algorithms and circuits for the GSM standard and for cordless standards such as the European DECT and the Japanese PHS .
Aware of the growth and success of VLSI in the wireless handset IC industry, Philips Electronics finally acquired VLSI in June 1999. The former components of VLSI still exist today as part of the Philips spin-off NXP Semiconductors .
Web links
- Engineersgarage.com - Topic VLSI Technology 2011 - English
Individual evidence
- ^ History of VLSI Technology fundinguniverse.com - accessed February 25, 2013