Crystal Semiconductor

Last updated
Crystal Semiconductor Corporation
Type
  • Private (1984–1991)
  • Subsidiary (after 1991)
Industry
  • Computer
  • Semiconductor
Founded1984;39 years ago (1984) in Austin, Texas, United States
Founders
  • Michael J. Callahan
  • James H. Clardy
Defunct2002;21 years ago (2002)
FateAcquired by Cirrus Logic in 1991; absorbed into Cirrus Logic c. 2002
Number of employees
429 (1995)

Crystal Semiconductor Corporation was an American computer company based in Austin, Texas, and active from 1984 to the early 2000s. Founded by Michael J. Callahan and James H. Clardy, the company originally specialized in the design and manufacture of silicon for mixed-signal integrated circuits, namely digital-to-analog (DAC) and analog-to-digital (ADC) converters. After being acquired by Cirrus Logic of San Jose, California, in 1991 for about $59 million, the company became a dominant player in the personal computer sound chip market. [1]

Contents

History

Independent era (1984–1991)

Crystal Semiconductor Corporation was incorporated in 1984 by Michael J. Callahan and James H. Clardy in Austin, Texas. [2] : 170  [3] Callahan, the principal founder, had previously incorporated Texas Micro Engineering (TME), a fabless semiconductor firm, in Austin in 1979. Clardy meanwhile was a 21-year veteran designer at Texas Instruments before co-founding Crystal. [4] : G1  Immediately after forming Crystal, Callahan transferred TME's assets over to his new company. [2] : 170  Unlike TME, Crystal was a full-on semiconductor fabricator, the company groundbreaking a 10,000-square-foot plant in Austin with the US$5 million of capital they had initially raised. [4] : G1  The company initially focused on the production of digital-to-analog (DAC) and analog-to-digital (ADC) integrated circuits for use in telecommunications, computers, and automobile stereos; the production of such converters constituted a US$600-million industry at the time. [4] : G5  [5] The founders hoped to reach $100 million in sales within its first five years. [4] : G1 

Employment at Crystal grew tenfold from 1984 to 1986, the company having about 70 workers on its payroll in March 1986. [3] The following month the company delivered their first chip, the CSC8870B—a DTMF decoder—for the telecommunications industry. [2] : 170  [6] Fabrication of the chip was subcontracted out to foundries in California, Canada, and Singapore. [6] In June 1986, Crystal announced an analog circuit development system, comprising an in-circuit emulation application for the IBM PC—dubbed the Crystal-ICE Filter Development System—and the company's new CSC7008 filter chip. [2] : 170  [7] This development system was featured on the front cover of Electronic Design magazine. [7] In January 1987, by which point Crystal had 85 employees. Asahi Kasei, a Japanese chemical and electronics conglomerate, purchased an eight-percent stake in Crystal in exchange for flushing the company with new capital. [8] [9]

Within 1988, the company had grown by 300 percent and reached 100 employees by October that year. In that same month the company was commissioned by an alliance of airline companies for the design of an analog ASIC that could gauge wind shear threats for both pilots and air traffic controllers—a feature of fly-by-wire systems that had recently been mandated by the FAA that year. The order for the chip was the largest the converter industry had seen up to that point. [10] By the end of the year, Crystal generated $5.5 million in sales and employed 120 workers. [11] Despite growth in all its departments and a tripling of overall sales, the company had yet to post a profitable quarter, and members of the board allegedly feared that Crystal was beginning to grow too fast for the amount of remaining cash reserves the company had, prompting them to layoff 15 workers in the beginning of 1989. [11] [12] Crystal later achieved its first profitable quarter in August 1989; [12] afterward, the company posted nine straight profitable quarters in a row. [13] Employment at Crystal hovered around 100 between 1989 and 1990; by May 1991 the company had grown to 150 workers. [14]

Cirrus Logic era (1991–2002)

A Crystal CS4231 sound chip from 1994 Crystal CS4231.jpg
A Crystal CS4231 sound chip from 1994

The company exceeded $100 million in sales for the first time in 1991. [15] : F6  In September 1991, Cirrus Logic, Inc., a San Jose, California–based fabless semiconductor company specializing in personal computer chips, announced the acquisition of Crystal in a stock swap worth roughly $59 million at the time. [16] The acquisition was completed in late October 1991, the company becoming an independent subsidiary of Cirrus Logic while retaining its headquarters, name, and marketing team. [15] : F1  [17] The acquisition market Crystal's pivot away from general-purpose converters to modems and sound-generating ASICs for personal computers. [18] Prompted by growing sales and employment, between April and June 1993, the company's 350 workers moved out from their old headquarters to a new plant in Austin four times its size. Around the same time, Cirrus Logic earmarked another 45,000-square-foot plant in the area for them to occupy in January 1994. [19]

Crystal under Cirrus Logic's ownership employed 429 in 1995. [13] Between 1997 and 1998 the company cut 30 jobs, amid a wave of layoffs at Cirrus Logic affecting between 400 and 500 workers total. [20] Clardy left the company in 1997, citing overbearing management from Cirrus Logic. [21] That year, Crystal launched a lawsuit against Milpitas-based OPTi Inc. and Singapore-based TriTech Microelectronics for alleged patent infringement of Crystal's mixed-signal technology. [22] [23] The courts ruled in favor of Crystal in late 1999 or early 2000, ordering TriTech and OPTi to pay their portion of a combined $20 million. [22]

In April 2000, Cirrus Logic relocated their headquarters and management from San Jose to Crystal's home of Austin, citing a pivot away from video controller chips to Crystal's specialty of audio and optical storage controller chips. [24] By 2002, Cirrus Logic had absorbed Crystal into their base of operations and finally retired the name. [25]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electronics</span> Branch of physics and electrical engineering

Electronics is a scientific and engineering discipline that studies and applies the principles of physics to design, create, and operate devices that manipulate electrons and other charged particles. Electronics is a subfield of electrical engineering, but it differs from it in that it focuses on using active devices such as transistors, diodes, and integrated circuits to control and amplify the flow of electric current and to convert it from one form to another, such as from alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) or from analog to digital. Electronics also encompasses the fields of microelectronics, nanoelectronics, optoelectronics, and quantum electronics, which deal with the fabrication and application of electronic devices at microscopic, nanoscopic, optical, and quantum scales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Field-programmable gate array</span> Array of logic gates that are reprogrammable

A field-programmable gate array (FPGA) is an integrated circuit designed to be configured after manufacturing. The FPGA configuration is generally specified using a hardware description language (HDL), similar to that used for an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC). Circuit diagrams were previously used to specify the configuration, but this is increasingly rare due to the advent of electronic design automation tools.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Integrated circuit</span> Electronic circuit formed on a small, flat piece of semiconductor material

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 inextricable 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.

Transistor–transistor logic (TTL) is a logic family built from bipolar junction transistors. Its name signifies that transistors perform both the logic function and the amplifying function, as opposed to earlier resistor–transistor logic (RTL) and diode–transistor logic (DTL).

National Semiconductor was an American semiconductor manufacturer which specialized in analog devices and subsystems, formerly with headquarters in Santa Clara, California. The company produced power management integrated circuits, display drivers, audio and operational amplifiers, communication interface products and data conversion solutions. National's key markets included wireless handsets, displays and a variety of broad electronics markets, including medical, automotive, industrial and test and measurement applications.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fairchild Semiconductor</span> American integrated circuit manufacturer

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.

Electronic design automation (EDA), also referred to as electronic computer-aided design (ECAD), is a category of software tools for designing electronic systems such as integrated circuits and printed circuit boards. The tools work together in a design flow that chip designers use to design and analyze entire semiconductor chips. Since a modern semiconductor chip can have billions of components, EDA tools are essential for their design; this article in particular describes EDA specifically with respect to integrated circuits (ICs).

Bipolar CMOS (BiCMOS) is a semiconductor technology that integrates two semiconductor technologies, those of the bipolar junction transistor and the CMOS logic gate, into a single integrated circuit. In more recent times the bipolar processes have been extended to include high mobility devices using silicon–germanium junctions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mixed-signal integrated circuit</span> Integrated circuit

A mixed-signal integrated circuit is any integrated circuit that has both analog circuits and digital circuits on a single semiconductor die. Their usage has grown dramatically with the increased use of cell phones, telecommunications, portable electronics, and automobiles with electronics and digital sensors.

Cirrus Logic Inc. is an American fabless semiconductor supplier that specializes in analog, mixed-signal, and audio DSP integrated circuits (ICs). Since 1998, the company's headquarters have been in Austin, Texas.

Midas is a company that designs professional audio consoles. Founded in London in 1970 by Jeff Byers and Charles Brooke, today the company is part of the Music Tribe group of brands.

KVUE is a television station in Austin, Texas, United States, affiliated with ABC and owned by Tegna Inc. The station's studios are located on Steck Avenue just east of Loop 1 in northwest Austin, and its transmitter is located on the West Austin Antenna Farm northwest of downtown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">SigmaTel</span> 1993–2008 American system-on-a-chip company

SigmaTel, Inc., was an American system-on-a-chip (SoC), electronics and software company headquartered in Austin, Texas, that designed AV media player/recorder SoCs, reference circuit boards, SoC software development kits built around a custom cooperative kernel and all SoC device drivers including USB mass storage and AV decoder DSP, media player/recorder apps, and controller chips for multifunction peripherals. SigmaTel became Austin's largest IPO as of 2003 when it became publicly traded on NASDAQ. The company was driven by a talented mix of electrical and computer engineers plus other professionals with semiconductor industry experience in Silicon Hills, the number two IC design region in the United States, after Silicon Valley.

A linear integrated circuit or analog chip is a set of miniature electronic analog circuits formed on a single piece of semiconductor material.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Media Vision Pro AudioSpectrum</span>

The Media Vision Pro AudioSpectrum family of personal computer sound cards included the original 8-bit Pro AudioSpectrum (1991), the 8-bit Pro AudioSpectrum Plus, 16-bit Pro AudioSpectrum 16, Pro AudioSpectrum 16 Basic and 16-bit Pro Audio Studio. All PAS cards with the exception of Pro AudioSpectrum 16 Basic could connect to CD-ROM drives—variants having SCSI or various proprietary interfaces—and many were sold in multimedia kits with compatible CD-ROM drives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NXP Semiconductors</span> Dutch semiconductor manufacturer

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Electronic circuit</span> Electrical circuit with active components

An electronic circuit is composed of individual electronic components, such as resistors, transistors, capacitors, inductors and diodes, connected by conductive wires or traces through which electric current can flow. It is a type of electrical circuit and to be referred to as electronic, rather than electrical, generally at least one active component must be present. The combination of components and wires allows various simple and complex operations to be performed: signals can be amplified, computations can be performed, and data can be moved from one place to another.

The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to electronics:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OPTi Inc.</span> Semiconductor company in California, US

OPTi Inc. was a fabless semiconductor company based in Milpitas, California, that primarily manufactured chipsets for personal computers. The company dissolved in 2001 and transferred its assets to the unaffiliated non-practicing entity OPTi Technologies

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alliance Semiconductor</span>

Alliance Semiconductor Corporation was an American semiconductor company active from 1985 to 2006 and originally based in San Jose, California. The company specialized in the design and manufacture of dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) and static random-access memory (SRAM). It also designed the silicon for graphics accelerator chips, among other fields. In 2006, the company dissolved, its intellectual property and other assets sold to various companies.

References

  1. ↑ Fritz, Mark (December 1995). "The chip manufacturers: Who's who and what have they got?". CD-ROM Professional. Online, Incorporated. 8 (12): 35 – via ProQuest.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Components Division (June 1988). A Decade of Semiconductor Companies (PDF). Dataquest Incorporated. Archived from the original (PDF) on December 27, 2014 – via Computer History Museum.
  3. 1 2 Staff writer (March 29, 1986). "Crystal capital". Austin American-Statesman: C1 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Mitchell, Russell (October 25, 1984). "New chipmaker makes Austin its hometown". Austin American-Statesman: G1, G5 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. ↑ Sullivan, Kathleen (January 27, 1986). "Circuit bridges built in Austin". Austin American-Statesman: D1 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. 1 2 Staff writer (April 9, 1986). "Crystal announces its first circuit". Austin American-Statesman: C1 – via Newspapers.com.
  7. 1 2 Sullivan, Kathleen (June 9, 1986). "Crystal's chip becomes pinup". Austin American-Statesman: C1 – via Newspapers.com.
  8. ↑ Sullivan, Kathleen (January 21, 1987). "Japanese buy part of Crystal". Austin American-Statesman: E7 – via Newspapers.com.
  9. ↑ Sullivan, Kathleen (January 26, 1987). "U.S. firms take partners on line". Austin American-Statesman: D1 – via Newspapers.com.
  10. ↑ Pope, Kyle (October 23, 1988). "Nation seeing Austin as high-tech heaven". Austin American-Statesman: H1, H3 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. 1 2 Pope, Kyle (January 4, 1989). "Crystal lays off 15 workers, announces increase in sales". Austin-American Statesman: C9, C10 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. 1 2 Pope, Kyle (August 1, 1989). "Crystal Semiconductor reports first profitable quarter since 1984 start". Austin-American Statesman: C1, C3 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. 1 2 Breyer, R. Michelle (June 22, 1995). "Above and beyond". Austin American-Statesman: D1 – via ProQuest.
  14. ↑ Staff writer (May 11, 1991). "Line of credit". Austin-American Statesman: E1 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. 1 2 Ladendorf, Kirk (September 5, 1991). "Crystal mergers with California chip company". Austin American-Statesman: F1, F6 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ↑ "Cirrus Logic Inc.: Chip Maker Agrees to Buy Crystal Semiconductor". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company: B4. September 4, 1991 – via ProQuest.
  17. ↑ Staff writer (October 28, 1991). "Cirrus Logic Completes Merger". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company: 1 – via ProQuest.
  18. ↑ Ladendorf, Kirk (April 5, 1993). "Crystal Semiconductor gains steam". Austin American-Statesman: D1, D6 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ↑ Ladendorf, Kirk (June 17, 1993). "Chip maker grows to new quarters". Austin American-Statesman: C9 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. ↑ Ladendorf, Kirk (October 27, 1998). "Changing Austin tech". Austin American-Statesman: D1 – via ProQuest.
  21. ↑ Hawkins, Lori (July 11, 2005). "Whipping chip startups into shape". Austin American-Statesman: D1 – via ProQuest.
  22. 1 2 Flood, Mary (January 19, 2000). "As Austin High-Tech Firms Mature, Patent Suits Boom". The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company: T1 – via ProQuest.
  23. ↑ Collett, Stacy (May 24, 1999). "Chip Maker Wins Big in Patent Infringement Suit". Computerworld. IDG Publications. 33 (21): 29 – via Google Books.
  24. ↑ Ladendorf, Kirk (April 27, 2000). "Cirrus Logic will call Austin home". Austin American-Statesman: D1 – via ProQuest.
  25. ↑ Ladendorf, Kirk (April 22, 2002). "With chips, Cicada hears click of success". Austin American-Statesman: D1 – via ProQuest.
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.