Microchip Technology

Microchip Technology
Public
Traded as NASDAQ: MCHP
S&P 500 Component
Industry Semiconductors
Founded 1989 (1989)
Headquarters Chandler, Arizona,
United States
Key people
 Steve Sanghi, President & CEO
J. Eric Bjornholt, CFO
Ganesh Moorthy, COO
Products Microcontrollers
Serial EEPROMs
Serial SRAM
Analog ICs
Revenue Increase$1.931 billion (2014)[1]
Number of employees
 8,604 (2014) [2]
Website www.microchip.com
A 1988 vintage Microchip PIC16CR54 with the Apple Desktop Bus protocol pre-programmed, before they became an independent company, as used in a Macintosh SE.

Microchip Technology is an American manufacturer of microcontroller, memory and analog semiconductors. Its products include microcontrollers (PICmicro, dsPIC / PIC24, PIC32), Serial EEPROM devices, Serial SRAM devices, KEELOQ devices, radio frequency (RF) devices, thermal, power and battery management analog devices, as well as linear, interface and mixed signal devices. Some of the interface devices include USB, ZigBee/MiWi, Controller Area Network, and Ethernet.

Corporate headquarters is located at Chandler, Arizona with wafer fabs in Tempe, Arizona and Gresham, Oregon, and assembly/test facilities in Chachoengsao, Thailand. Sales for the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2014 were $1,931,217,000.[2]

Among its chief competitors are Analog Devices, Freescale (spin-off from Motorola), Infineon, Maxim Integrated Products, NXP Semiconductors (spin-off from Philips), Renesas Electronics, STMicroelectronics, and Texas Instruments. Former rival Atmel was bought in 2016 (see below).

History

Microchip Technology was founded in 1987 when General Instrument spun off its microelectronics division as a wholly owned subsidiary.[3] Microchip Technology became an independent company in 1989 when it was acquired by a group of venture capitalists, and went public in 1993.[4]

In April 2009, Microchip Technology announced the nanoWatt XLP Microcontrollers (With World’s Lowest Sleep Current).[5] Microchip Technology had sold more than 6 billion microcontrollers as of 2009.[6]

In April 2010, Microchip acquired Silicon Storage Technology (SST),[7] and sold several SST flash memory assets to Greenliant Systems in May that year.[8]

As of 2011, Microchip Technology ships over a billion processors every year. In September 2011, Microchip Technology shipped the 10 billionth PIC microcontroller.[9]

In August 2012, Microchip acquired Standard Microsystems Corporation (SMSC).[10] Among SMSC's assets were those it had previously acquired from Symwave, a start-up that specialized in USB 3.0 chips, and two hi-fi wireless audio companies—Kleer Semiconductor and Wireless Audio IP BV.[11][12][13]

In January 2016, Microchip agreed to buy Atmel for $3.56 billion.[14][15][16] JPMorgan Chase advised Microchip while Qatalyst Partners advised Atmel.[17]

Products

Microchip develops a wide range of microcontrollers and integrated circuits (ICs), for the hobbyist and professional markets.

Microcontrollers

Microchip is widely known for their line of PICMicro microcontrollers, and their MCU-related product line includes:

Integrated circuits

The Microchip product line of integrated circuits include:

Acquisitions

HI-TECH Software

HI-TECH Software was an Australian-based company that provides ANSI C compilers and development tools. Founded in 1984, the company is best known for its HI-TECH C PRO compilers with whole-program compilation technology, or Omniscient Code Generation (OCG).[18][19] HI-TECH Software was bought by Microchip on 20 February 2009,[20] whereupon it refocused its development effort exclusively on supporting Microchip products.[21]

Supported manufacturers and architectures :

Silicon Storage Technology

Silicon Storage Technology, Inc. (SST) was a Sunnyvale, California, USA, technology company producing non-volatile memory devices and related products.[23][24] SST supplies of NOR flash and other integrated circuits for high-volume applications.[25]

Bing Yeh co-founded SST in August 1989, and served as its chief executive.[26]

At the 1992 Fall COMDEX trade show, SST introduced the first single-board 30 MB 2.5” solid-state drive with standard hard-disk ATA interface and a 5 MB PC Card memory card with built-in controller and firmware.[27]

In 1993, SST moved its headquarters to Sunnyvale. That same year, SST introduced its first SuperFlash technology products, with lower costs and faster write speeds. By the end of 1995, more than 90% of the PC motherboards produced in Taiwan had adopted SST's 1 Mbit SuperFlash EEPROM product for the BIOS storage. The company had its initial public offering November 21, 1995, trading on the NASDAQ market under the symbol SSTI.[28] Analytical models of SuperFlash were published.[29][30] A five-year licensing agreement was announced in January 1999 with Acer Inc..[31] A 1997 lawsuit filed by Intel was settled in May 1999 after mediation.[32]

In 2004, SST began to diversify beyond flash memory products, targeting consumer and industrial products with embedded solid-state data storage and RF wireless communication.[33] In September 2004 SST purchased a majority stake in Emosyn, which designed products for SIM cards. In October it announced the acquisition of G-Plus, based in Santa Monica, California.[33]

In 2006, SST announced a joint development agreement with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to develop 90 nm SuperFlash technology.[34]

SST had its stock option grant practices investigated by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, ending in June 2008.[35] It determined it needed to restate earnings, and was giving a de-listing notice by NASDAQ for filing late reports from 2006 through 2007.[36] Business slowed in the Great Recession.The company announced a loss on reduced revenues, reducing its workforce by 17% in December 2008.[37]

In November 2009, Technology Resource Holdings offered to acquire the company for about $200 million, but a group of shareholders thought it was undervalued.[38] Starting in February 2010, private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management and public company Microchip Technology both made offers to acquire SST.[39][40] In April 2010, Microchip completed the acquisition for about $292 million.[41][42] Microchip sold several SST flash memory assets to Greenliant Systems (founded by Yeh) in May that year.[43]

References

  1. ↑
  2. 1 2 "Form 10-K filed 5-30-2014" (PDF).
  3. ↑ "General Instrument Microelectronics Renamed".
  4. ↑ "Microchip Investor Relations - FAQs".
  5. ↑ Quick, Darren. "nanoWatt XLP Microcontrollers claim world’s lowest sleep current" gizmag April 30, 2009
  6. ↑ Brian Santo (May 2009). "25 Microchips That Shook the World". IEEE Spectrum. Retrieved 2012-04-01.
  7. ↑ {{cite news SST-acquisition | title =Microchip completes SST acquisition | date =April 8, 2010 | publisher =EE Times | url =http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4088552/Microchip-completes- | accessdate=2016-02-22 }}
  8. ↑ Maleval, Jean-Jacques (May 27, 2010). "Greenliant Acquires Assets of Microchip". StorageNewsletter.com.
  9. ↑ Microchip Technology Delivers 10 Billionth PIC® Microcontroller
  10. ↑ "Microchip Technology and SMSC announce the completion of the acquisition of SMSC by Microchip Technology" (PDF) (Press release). Retrieved 2012-08-29.
  11. ↑ Mark LaPedus, November 15, 2010 SMSC acquires Symwave, EE Times
  12. ↑ http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1256626
  13. ↑ http://www.eetimes.com/document.asp?doc_id=1173085
  14. ↑ "Microchip To Buy Atmel in Latest Semiconductor Deal". Fortune. January 20, 2016.
  15. ↑ Assis, Claudia. "Microchip Technology buys chip maker Atmel in $3.56 billion deal". MarketWatch. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
  16. ↑ By. "Microchip To Acquire Atmel for $3.56 Billion". Hackaday. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
  17. ↑ Picker, Leslie (2016-01-19). "Microchip Technology to Buy Atmel for Nearly $3.6 Billion". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2016-01-21.
  18. ↑ Whole Program C Compiler Optimizes Across Modules
  19. ↑ Omniscient Code Generation - A whole-program compilation technology for superior code density and performance
  20. ↑ http://www.search.asic.gov.au/cgi-bin/gns030c?acn=002_724_549&juris=9&hdtext=ACN&srchsrc=1
  21. ↑ HI-TECH Customer Letter
  22. ↑ The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine saved a copy of the compiler, available here and a installing turorial is available here.
  23. ↑ Christensen, Clayton M. (1997). The innovator's dilemma: when new technologies cause great firms to fail. Boston, Mass.: Harvard Business School Press. p. 50. ISBN 978-0-87584-585-2.
  24. ↑ "SST Reports Second Quarter 2009 Financial Results". Press release (Silicon Storage Technology). July 28, 2009. Archived from the original on August 8, 2009. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  25. ↑ "Silicon Storage Technology". StorageSearch.com. Retrieved 2011-04-04.
  26. ↑ Saxenian, AnnaLee (1999). Silicon Valley's new immigrant entrepreneurs. San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California. p. 92. ISBN 978-1-58213-009-5.
  27. ↑ "Pioneers of the Digital Revolution". Goldsea Asian American Daily. 2006. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  28. ↑ "Annual report for the Year ending December 31, 1996". Form 10K. US Securities and Exchange Commission. March 27, 1997. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  29. ↑ H. Guan, D. Lee, and G. P. Lee (March 2003). "An analytical model for optimization of programming efficiency and uniformity of split gate source-side injection SuperFlash memory". IEEE Transactions on Electron Devices 50 (3): 809–815. doi:10.1109/TED.2003.811416.
  30. ↑ Xian Liu, V. Markov, A. Kotov, Tho Ngoc Dang, A. Levi, I. Yue, A. Wang, and R. Qian (October 2006). "Endurance Characteristics of SuperFlash Memory". 8th International Conference on Solid-State and Integrated Circuit Technology: 763–765. doi:10.1109/ICSICT.2006.306479.
  31. ↑ "Chips are up for Acer: Deal with SST to bring welcome cash boost". The Register. January 14, 1999. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  32. ↑ Mike Magee (May 14, 1999). "Intel and Silicon Storage settle lawsuit: A mediator has mediated". The Register. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  33. 1 2 "SST 2004 Annual Report" (PDF). SST. April 22, 2005. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 1, 2012. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  34. ↑ Nancy Gohring (August 21, 2006). "SST, TSMC to jointly develop 90nm SuperFlash: Companies plan to be the first on the market with licensable 90nm embedded flash technology". Info World. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  35. ↑ "SST back in Nasdaq compliance, SEC investigation ends". San Jose Business Journal. July 7, 2008. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  36. ↑ "SST gets Nasdaq warning over late financials". San Jose Business Journal. August 17, 2007. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  37. ↑ "Silicon Storage lowers outlook, cuts jobs". San Jose Business Journal. December 17, 2008. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  38. ↑ Mary Duan (January 5, 2010). "Shareholder group fights SSTI acquisition". San Jose Business Journal. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  39. ↑ "Microchip Tech Raises Bid for Silicon Storage". New York Times Deal Book. March 9, 2010. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  40. ↑ Andrew Johnson (March 9, 2010). "Microchip ups bid for tech company". The Arizona Republic.
  41. ↑ Mark LaPedus (April 8, 2010). "Microchip completes SST acquisition". EE Times. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  42. ↑ "Microchip Tech Sews Up Silicon Storage Deal". New York Times Deal Book. April 9, 2010. Retrieved October 1, 2013.
  43. ↑ Maleval, Jean-Jacques (May 27, 2010). "Greenliant Acquires Assets of Microchip". StorageNewsletter.com. Retrieved October 1, 2013.

External links

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