Cypress Semiconductor encyclopedia topics

Cypress Semiconductor is a Silicon Valley-based semiconductor design and manufacturing company founded by T. J. Rodgers and others from Advanced Micro Devices. It was formed in 1982 with backing by Sevin Rosen and went public in 1986. The company initially focused on the design and development of high speed CMOS SRAMs, EEPROMs, PAL devices, and TTL logic devices. Two years after going public the company switched from the NASDAQ to the New York Stock Exchange where it continues to trade under the symbol (). Its headquarters are in San Jose, California, and it has divisions in the United States, India and the Philippines as well as fabs in Minnesota and Texas.

Some its main competitors include Integrated Device Technology, Samsung Electronics, and Xilinx.

Acquisition strategy

Since soon after its founding, Cypress has sought to unleash entrepreneurial forces by acting as incubator for wholly owned subsidiaries which are given a degree of autonomy, or by outright acquisition of other small technology companies. Since the mid-1990s the acquisitions have included:

PSoC

Programmable System on a Chip.

Timing Technology:

IC Works
International Microcircuits Inc.

USB Technology:

Anchor Chips
In-System Design
ScanLogic

SRAM Technology:

Galvantech, Inc.
Cascade Semiconductor Corporation

Radio Frequency Technology:

RadioCom
Alation

Solar Cell Technology

SunPower
PowerLight

Image Sensors

Silicon Light Machines
FillFactory
SMaL Camera Technologies(Sold to Sensata Technologies in 2007)

Network Technology

Silicon Packets
Lara Networks
HiBand Semiconductors

In addition, Cypress has incorporated some of its technology into subsidiaries, in order to speed up development of such products as the PSoC mixed-signal controller, which is a programmable system-on-chip (SoC) that integrates a microcontroller and the analog and digital components that typically surround it in an embedded system.

Major product offerings

General Purpose Clock generators
Control Communications
Image sensors
Memory
Optical Sensors
PSoC Mixed-Signal Controllers
Physical Layer Devices
Programmable Logic Devices
Solar Cells
Universal Serial Bus
West Bridge Peripheral Controllers
Wireless

Location

Cypress has manufacturing plants and design facilities in the United States, the Philippines, Belgium, Bangalore and Hyderabad in India, and in Ireland.