Cypress Semiconductor

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Cypress Semiconductor Corp

Type	Public (NASDAQ: CY)
Founded	California, U.S. (1982)
Founder(s)	T. J. Rodgers
Headquarters	San Jose, California, U.S.
Number of locations	14 Design Centers, 40 Sales Offices (2000)
Industry	Semiconductors
Revenue	▼ US$766 million (2008)
Employees	4,100 (2008)
Divisions	Memory and Imaging Division, Data Communications Division, Consumer and Computations Division
Website	Cypress.com

Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (NASDAQ: CY) 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. In October 2009, the company announced it would switch its listing to the NASDAQ on November 12, 2009^[1]. Its headquarters are in San Jose, California, and it has divisions in the United States, India and the Philippines as well as a fabrication plant in Minnesota.

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

Contents 1 Acquisition strategy 2 Major product offerings 2.1 Patents 3 Location 4 Subsidiaries 5 See also 6 External links 7 References

[edit] Acquisition strategy

Since its founding, Cypress has acted as an incubator for wholly owned subsidiaries which are given a degree of autonomy and has acquired other small technology companies. Since the mid-1990s these 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
  • Simtek
• Radio Frequency Technology:
  • RadioCom
  • Alation
• Solar Cell Technology (distributed to CY shareholders in 2008 as SPWRB stock)
  • 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 Programmable System-on-Chip (SoC) that integrates analog and digital components with a microcontroller on a single chip to form a complete solution for embedded systems.

[edit] Major product offerings

• PSoC Programmable System-on-Chip
• CapSense Capacitive Touch Sensing
• Cypress TrueTouch Multi-touch Sensing Systems
• General Purpose Programmable Clock generators
• Control Communications
• Image sensors
• Memory
• Optical Sensors
• Physical Layer Devices
• Programmable Logic Devices
• Universal Serial Bus
• West Bridge ultra high-speed peripheral controllers
• Wireless
• CyFi 2.4 GHz RF Solution

[edit] Patents

Cypress Semiconductors currently has about 750 patents relating to its products. The patents pertain to numerous product types, including programmable clocks, programmable logic, and PSoC programmable system-on chip devices. PSoC patents are the fastest growing segment within the portfolio.^{[citation needed]}

In total, Cypress has been granted over 1650 patents. In addition to the granted patents, Cypress currently has over 1100 patents pending, including over 300 applications related to programmable technology.^[2]

[edit] Location

Cypress has manufacturing plants and design facilities in the United States (the largest of which are in San Jose CA, Lynnwood WA, Boise ID, San Diego CA, and Beaverton OR), the Philippines, Belgium, Bangalore and Hyderabad in India, China, and in Ireland.

[edit] Subsidiaries

Cypress Envirosystems provides products and solutions that it says save energy and improve productivity for older plants and buildings. The subsidiary is based in San Jose, California. The formation of Cypress Envirosystems was announced in January 2009^[3].

AgigaTech, Inc. sells non-volatile random-access memory (RAM) and is based in Poway, California.

[edit] See also

• SunPower
• Warp (Cypress)

[edit] External links

• Cypress home page
• Cypress China Website
• PSoC page
• PSoC C Compiler
• PSoC Developer Website
• West Bridge Peripheral Controllers
• Cypress Touts Top Ranking by IMS Research in Touchscreen Space

[edit] References

1. ^ "Cypress Semiconductor Corp. to Switch Stock Exchange Listing to NASDAQ on November 12". 2009-10-30. http://www.cypress.com/?rID=39233. Retrieved 2009-10-30. 
2. ^ Cypress Patents
3. ^ "Rodgers reveals next big thing at Cypress". 2009-01-15. http://www.eetimes.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212900731. Retrieved 2009-11-7.