Signetics Corporation was an American electronics manufacturer specifically established to make integrated circuits.[1] Founded in 1961, they went on to develop a number of early microprocessors and support chips, as well as the widely used 555 timer chip. The company was bought by Philips in 1975 and incorporated in Philips Semiconductors (now NXP).[1]
Signetics was started in 1961, by a group of engineers (David Allison, David James, Lionel Kattner, and Mark Weissenstern) who had left Fairchild Semiconductor.[1] At the time, Fairchild was concentrating on its discrete component business (mostly transistors), and its management felt that by making integrated circuits (ICs) it would lose its customers. Signetics founders believed that ICs were the future of electronics (much like another contemporary Fairchild spinoff, Amelco) and wished to commercialize them. The name of the new company was coined from Signal Network Electronics.
The venture was financed by a group organized through Lehman Brothers, who invested $1M. The initial idea was to design and manufacture ICs for specific customers. In order to facilitate this goal, Signetics did not have a separate R&D lab; instead, the engineering was all done in technical development department, and was closely tied to marketing.
Signetics first developed a series of standard DTL ICs, which it announced in 1962. However, it was struggling to sell custom-made circuits, which was the original goal, and was quickly exhausting the initial investment money, so new investors had to be found. In November 1962, Corning Glass invested another $1.7M in Signetics, in exchange for 51% ownership. This money enabled Signetics to survive, and much of the funding was put into a marketing and sales campaign.
In 1963, the Department of Defense made a decision to begin a shift towards microelectronics and ICs, due to their small size, higher reliability, and lower power consumption. As a result, military contractors began to explore the field, and as Signetics was one of the few firms selling custom circuits, it benefited greatly. In the fall of 1963 and throughout most of 1964, sales grew quickly, and the company finally became profitable. Signetics also grew rapidly, hiring more engineers and increasing its manufacturing space. In 1964, Signetics opened a large new fabricating plant ("fab") in Sunnyvale, California. At this time, it was by far the largest manufacturer of ICs in Silicon Valley. It later expanded also to factories in Orem, Utah and Albuquerque, New Mexico, where there were two fabs, FAB22 (4-inch) and FAB23 (6-inch).
In 1964, Fairchild began to muscle its way into the IC business. Since Signetics circuits were the de facto standard in the market, Fairchild decided to copy them. However, it used its superior cash position, marketing power, and manufacturing strength to undercut its competitor by slashing prices and flooding the market. Signetics was struggling to compete, and began losing money again. Corning saw this as proof of poor management, and used its controlling interest to drive out most of the founders and take complete control of the company.
Signetics managed to stabilize and become profitable again, but it never regained its market leadership, which was now firmly held by Fairchild. Its engineers continued to innovate in IC technology, and remained a significant force. Around 1971, the Signetics introduced the innovative 555 timer IC, which it called "The IC Time Machine".[2] This was the first and only low-cost commercial IC timer available at the time, and soon became a best-seller. Signetics was known for creating innovative ICs for both analog electronics and the rapidly-growing digital electronics applications.
Logo used from 1981 until its closure
In 1975, the company was acquired by Philips, who continued the brand for some years. In the United States, Signetics reached its manufacturing height at around 1980. Later it was fully integrated into Philips Semiconductors (now NXP).[1]
In 1995, Philips spun off the assembly and test operation in South Korea, which was started by Signetics in 1966, as an independent subcontract service provider. They continue to use the name "Signetics". Since 2000, the Signetics brand is primarily used by the Young Poong Group.[3]
Notable devices
Signetics introduced a number of innovative analog and digital integrated circuits which became de facto standard products widely used in mass-produced electronics. Freely-distributed application notes published by Signetics were key in educating students and practicing engineers in the usefulness and simplicity of their ICs. Some designs remain iconic and are still used today in basic electronics lab exercises.[2]
The Signetics 555 timer IC was probably their best-known new product. Still widely manufactured and used today in original and updated versions, the basic design appears in many simple electronic timers, oscillators, and other basic electronic systems.
The Signetics NE565 was an pioneering implementation of powerful phase-locked loop technology in an IC, which along with the voltage-controlled oscillator (VCO) NE566, helped advance digital communications.
The Signetics 8X300 was a bipolar microprocessor developed by Scientific Micro Systems but manufactured by Signetics starting in 1976. It was mostly used as a controller chip due to its limited instruction set and its high speed.
The Signetics 82S100 FPLA (Field Programmable Logic Array) was the first commercially successful user programmable logic device, the forerunner of the modern FPGA.[8][9]
NE5532, a widely used audio op amp, now generic and produced by many other manufacturers. According to one 1993 article, NE5532 was "the standard audio op amp to which others are compared".[10]
NE5517, an operational transconductance amplifier, still in production by NXP Semiconductors and also generically made by other manufacturers; it is given as a classic OTA example in a number of textbooks.[11][12]
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece of semiconductor material, usually silicon. Large numbers of miniaturized transistors and other electronic components are integrated together on the chip. This results in circuits that are orders of magnitude smaller, faster, and less expensive than those constructed of discrete components, allowing a large transistor count. The IC's mass production capability, reliability, and building-block approach to integrated circuit design have ensured the rapid adoption of standardized ICs in place of designs using discrete transistors. ICs are now used in virtually all electronic equipment and have revolutionized the world of electronics. Computers, mobile phones and other home appliances are now essential parts of the structure of modern societies, made possible by the small size and low cost of ICs such as modern computer processors and microcontrollers.
Complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor is a type of metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) fabrication process that uses complementary and symmetrical pairs of p-type and n-type MOSFETs for logic functions. CMOS technology is used for constructing integrated circuit (IC) chips, including microprocessors, microcontrollers, memory chips, and other digital logic circuits. CMOS technology is also used for analog circuits such as image sensors, data converters, RF circuits, and highly integrated transceivers for many types of communication.
A programmable logic device (PLD) is an electronic component used to build reconfigurable digital circuits. Unlike digital logic constructed using discrete logic gates with fixed functions, a PLD has an undefined function at the time of manufacture. Before the PLD can be used in a circuit it must be programmed to implement the desired function. Compared to fixed logic devices, programmable logic devices simplify the design of complex logic and may offer superior performance. Unlike for microprocessors, programming a PLD changes the connections made between the gates in the device.
An application-specific integrated circuit is an integrated circuit (IC) chip customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use, such as a chip designed to run in a digital voice recorder or a high-efficiency video codec. Application-specific standard product chips are intermediate between ASICs and industry standard integrated circuits like the 7400 series or the 4000 series. ASIC chips are typically fabricated using metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) technology, as MOS integrated circuit chips.
Fairchild Semiconductor International, Inc. was an American semiconductor company based in San Jose, California. Founded in 1957 as a division of Fairchild Camera and Instrument, it became a pioneer in the manufacturing of transistors and of integrated circuits. Schlumberger bought the firm in 1979 and sold it to National Semiconductor in 1987; Fairchild was spun off as an independent company again in 1997. In September 2016, Fairchild was acquired by ON Semiconductor.
The history of computing hardware starting at 1960 is marked by the conversion from vacuum tube to solid-state devices such as transistors and then integrated circuit (IC) chips. Around 1953 to 1959, discrete transistors started being considered sufficiently reliable and economical that they made further vacuum tube computers uncompetitive. Metal–oxide–semiconductor (MOS) large-scale integration (LSI) technology subsequently led to the development of semiconductor memory in the mid-to-late 1960s and then the microprocessor in the early 1970s. This led to primary computer memory moving away from magnetic-core memory devices to solid-state static and dynamic semiconductor memory, which greatly reduced the cost, size, and power consumption of computers. These advances led to the miniaturized personal computer (PC) in the 1970s, starting with home computers and desktop computers, followed by laptops and then mobile computers over the next several decades.
The 7400 series is a popular logic family of transistor–transistor logic (TTL) integrated circuits (ICs).
The 555 timer IC is an integrated circuit (chip) used in a variety of timer, delay, pulse generation, and oscillator applications. Derivatives provide two (556) or four (558) timing circuits in one package. The design was first marketed in 1972 by Signetics and used bipolar junction transistors. Since then, numerous companies have made the original timers and later similar low-power CMOS timers. In 2017, it was said that over a billion 555 timers are produced annually by some estimates, and that the design was "probably the most popular integrated circuit ever made".
VLSI Technology, Inc., was an American company that designed and manufactured custom and semi-custom integrated circuits (ICs). The company was based in Silicon Valley, with headquarters at 1109 McKay Drive in San Jose. Along with LSI Logic, VLSI Technology defined the leading edge of the application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) business, which accelerated the push of powerful embedded systems into affordable products.
In integrated circuits, depletion-load NMOS is a form of digital logic family that uses only a single power supply voltage, unlike earlier NMOS logic families that needed more than one different power supply voltage. Although manufacturing these integrated circuits required additional processing steps, improved switching speed and the elimination of the extra power supply made this logic family the preferred choice for many microprocessors and other logic elements.
Integrated circuit design, or IC design, is a sub-field of electronics engineering, encompassing the particular logic and circuit design techniques required to design integrated circuits, or ICs. ICs consist of miniaturized electronic components built into an electrical network on a monolithic semiconductor substrate by photolithography.
A linear integrated circuit or analog chip is a set of miniature electronic analog circuits formed on a single piece of semiconductor material.
NXP Semiconductors N.V. (NXP) is a Dutch semiconductor designer and manufacturer with headquarters in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The company employs approximately 31,000 people in more than 30 countries. NXP reported revenue of $11.06 billion in 2021.
Hans R. Camenzind was an electronics engineer known for designing the 555 timer IC in 1971 under contract to Signetics. He was the inventor on 20 US patents. Camenzind also wrote three books and numerous technical articles, and lectured at the University of Santa Clara.
Power management integrated circuits are integrated circuits for power management. Although PMIC refers to a wide range of chips, most include several DC/DC converters or their control part. A PMIC is often included in battery-operated devices and embedded devices to decrease the amount of space required.
The first planar monolithic integrated circuit (IC) chip was demonstrated in 1960. The idea of integrating electronic circuits into a single device was born when the German physicist and engineer Werner Jacobi developed and patented the first known integrated transistor amplifier in 1949 and the British radio engineer Geoffrey Dummer proposed to integrate a variety of standard electronic components in a monolithic semiconductor crystal in 1952. A year later, Harwick Johnson filed a patent for a prototype IC. Between 1953 and 1957, Sidney Darlington and Yasuo Tarui proposed similar chip designs where several transistors could share a common active area, but there was no electrical isolation to separate them from each other.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
