Semiconductor manufacturers who's who (historical reference)

[rangerssuck]

It seems that hardly a month goes by without some semiconductor manufacturer changing names, either because they were acquired by another, spun off asa separate company or whatever.

Does anyone have a pointer to a who's who history of these companies?

The reason I want it is because sometimes I'll spec a part and my customer will say something like, "ON Semiconductor? Who the heck are they?" and I'll say, "They used to be Motorola." and the customer who obviously has neverheard of ON but has heard of Motorola is comfortable with that.

I've had this conversation more than once, and there have been times that Idid not know the answer. It would help to have a cheat sheet.

 

[John S]

Aside: is IR the only really old semiconductor company, dating from
the tube days?

Not from the tube days, maybe, but Fairchild is pretty old. From the
60's, I believe.

 

[Jamie]

Not from the tube days, maybe, but Fairchild is pretty old. From the
60's, I believe.

I have a collection of Sprague logic IC's.. I don't see them very much
any more..

Btw, I found matched pairs of RCA transistors in my collection not to
long ago, still sealed in their paired packages. Maybe that will become
an Ebay grab one day!


Jamie

 

[Bill Sloman]

Aside: is IR the only really old semiconductor company, dating from
the tube days?

RCA started in 1919, definitely exploited tubes (or valves in my
dialect)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RCA

Philips - now NXP was founded in 1891 to make filamenent lamps.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philips

Ferranti was even older, founded in 1885 to make big alternators

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferranti

You like some of their transistors, including some of the avalanche-
breakdown parts they have made in Russia.

Plessey was originally founded in 1917. Phil Hobbs liked some of their
IC's. I worked for them for a while, in Australia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plessey.

 

[miso]

Sprague was bought by Allegro. Allegro is really the US arm of Sanken.

While we're at it, Cherry was bought by On.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ON_Semiconductor

I think you could make a list of who begat who by reading the wikis of
the present day semiconductor companies and looking at the acquisitions.

 

[Bill Sloman]

Toshiba (parent companies founded in the 19th century), Sony, Panasonic,
NJR, Rohm, Nichia, Fujitsu...

Come to think of it, even Texas Instruments - nominally founded in
1951 - started off as Geophysical Service in the 1930's

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophysical_Service

providing geological information to oil companies, and build sonar-
based submarine detection gear for the US Navy during WW2

 

[Mark Zenier]

It seems that hardly a month goes by without some semiconductor
manufacturer changing names, either because they were acquired by
another, spun off as a separate company or whatever.

Does anyone have a pointer to a who's who history of these companies?

The reason I want it is because sometimes I'll spec a part and my
customer will say something like, "ON Semiconductor? Who the heck are
they?" and I'll say, "They used to be Motorola." and the customer who
obviously has never heard of ON but has heard of Motorola is comfortable
with that.

I've had this conversation more than once, and there have been times that
I did not know the answer. It would help to have a cheat sheet.

That crowdsourced semi database website from the Netherlands with
the slightly risque name had good company histories and logo data
as I remember. (Maybe somebody with less brain fade than I do can
remember the name).

If it went the way of all things net (evaporating or going commercial),
it might be archived somewhere like "the wayback machine" site.


Mark Zenier [email protected]
Googleproofaddress(account:mzenier provider:eskimo domain:com)

 

[Cydrome Leader]

Not from the tube days, maybe, but Fairchild is pretty old. From the
60's, I believe.

it's not the same as the original fairchild.

TI pretty darn old and the same company. The

EDI in NY has been around since 1951, and there's probably other small
specialty companies from around the same era still in operation.

Sanken is pretty old too. They claim founding in 1946 and their lab
opening in 1937.

 

[Klaus Kragelund]

It seems that hardly a month goes by without some semiconductor manufacturer changing names, either because they were acquired by another, spun off as a separate company or whatever.



Does anyone have a pointer to a who's who history of these companies?



The reason I want it is because sometimes I'll spec a part and my customer will say something like, "ON Semiconductor? Who the heck are they?" and I'll say, "They used to be Motorola." and the customer who obviously has never heard of ON but has heard of Motorola is comfortable with that.

Next some company will change name to "OFF". ON sounded stupid when the branded the new name, but now its rings fine and is hard to forget

Cheers

Klaus

 

[Charlie E.]

Next some company will change name to "OFF". ON sounded stupid when the branded the new name, but now its rings fine and is hard to forget

Cheers

Klaus

Back when I was with Cadence, I saw this one chart that listed all the
companies that had merged/been acquired/been assimiliated to become
Cadence. It was on a legal sized sheet of paper, and listed a couple
of dozen companies...

Charlie

 

[Robert Baer]

Not from the tube days, maybe, but Fairchild is pretty old. From the
60's, I believe.

BUT..the Fairchild of now is NOT the original Fairchild (which used
to be a fair-sized conglomerate).
Hell, they do not even have anywhere the semiconductor breadth of the
original company.

 

[Uwe Hercksen]

It seems that hardly a month goes by without some semiconductor manufacturer changing names, either because they were acquired by another, spun off as a separate company or whatever.

Does anyone have a pointer to a who's who history of these companies?

Hello,

a lot of history is found here:
http://semiconductormuseum.com/Museum_Index.htm

Bye

 

[Fred Abse]

Next some company will change name to "OFF". ON sounded stupid when the
branded the new name, but now its rings fine and is hard to forget

I've always called it "O-N", since it's capitalized.

 

[Fred Abse]

Plessey was originally founded in 1917. Phil Hobbs liked some of their
IC's.

So did I.

 

[Uwe Hercksen]

It seems that hardly a month goes by without some semiconductor manufacturer changing names, either because they were acquired by another, spun off as a separate company or whatever.

Does anyone have a pointer to a who's who history of these companies?

Hello,

look here
http://corphist.computerhistory.org...df?PHPSESSID=9b2d697e33ebce83778a3f1f2291eeb4

http://www.semi.org/en/Store/training/referencebooksposters/ctr_027209

Bye