VLSI Technology

VLSI Technology, Inc was a company designed the application- specific integrated circuits ( ASIC short or custom chip) as integrated circuits, produced and sold. Office of the company was Silicon Valley, 1109 McKay Drive in San Jose ( California). Since the functions of these new microchips were thus no longer be manipulated and the production costs were lower, these cost-cutting in series devices as application-specific standard products ( ASSP) were used. The company was founded in VLSI Technology in the late 1970s by Douglas Fairbairn, Jack Balletto, Dan Floyd and Gunnar Weslesen formed together with LSI Logic to the main business area for application-specific integrated circuits ( ASIC).

History and Development

In 1982, Alfred J. Stein was appointed as Chief Executive Officer ( CEO ) of the company. Then VLSI opened its first factory in San Jose and subsequently a second production facility in San Antonio, Texas. In 1983 the IPO. The company was later acquired by Philips Electronics and is still used as part of NXP Semiconductors.

VLSI was one of the pioneers in the electronic design automation and was at the beginning of the 80s a leading manufacturer of standard cells. Before the advent of VLSI cell production was only to large companies primarily in the semiconductor industry such as AT & T and IBM. VLSI ASIC made ​​possible by the production of tailor-made chips to certain necessary for the task at hand to do applications.

VLSI first major innovation was a workstation system, that it will make to its own chips to design allowed semiconductor products individually and effectively. The introduction of this system in the 1980s VLSI could significantly increase their sales in a short time. Until the mid- 1990s, VLSI rose to become a recognized leader in the chipset business. The company designed and manufactured chips, the basic logic components (English core logic) in computers with various microprocessors and related peripherals.

Global Expansion

VLSI expanded in the U.S., UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore and Taiwan. One of the most important locations was in Tempe (Arizona ), where a family was developed by highly successful chipsets for the IBM PC. The Swedish company Ericsson in 1998 VLSI's biggest customer. In the field of wireless products VLSI developed a series of algorithms and circuits for the GSM standard and cordless standards such as the European DECT and the Japanese PHS.

Become aware Due to the growth and success of VLSI in wireless handset IC industry, finally acquired Philips Electronics VLSI in June 1999. Former components of VLSI exist today as part of the Philips spin-off NXP Semiconductors.