Signetics

The formation of Signetics at 680 West Maude Avenue in Sunnyvale, California was announced on October 16, 1961 by a group of engineers formerly with Fairchild Semiconductor.

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.

Lionel Kattner in 2007 recollected that "Sig" and "netics" as common word fragments in the industry had just popped into his head.

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 small number of standard DTL ICs, which it announced in 1962.

The standard dies (VF101, VF120, VF140) were the basis for the variFEBS customization option, where the interconnect (metallization) layer was specified by the customer. Texas Instruments offered a similar service with their Master Slice product. The preFEBS option on the other hand allowed customers to send in full-custom designs prototyped on breadboards with Signetics-approved discrete components. Fairchild offered a similar service with their Integrated Circuit Breadboards product. Everything above except the SE200 TTL was advertised for in January 1963 and perhaps a little earlier.

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 Works 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).

President James F. Riley announced on June 8, 1966 that Signetics would establish a plant in Provo, Utah at 1450 North State Street in a 30,000sqft former bowling alley, with production to begin in September 1966. A payroll of $1 million per year was to support a work force of 150. The plant closed on December 15, 1992, final employment was 900, down from a prior all-time high of 2000. Operations were moved to Albuquerque, Sunnyvale and Caen. Plant additions in 1974, 1981 and 1988 had increased the square footage to an eventual 530,000.

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". 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.

In November 1973, Signetics raised $20,600,000 with the sale of 1,300,000 shares of common stock to the public. This diluted Corning's stake from 92% to 70.2%. The first annual report to shareholders was published for the year ending December 30, 1973.

In 1975 second source production began of 2 chips of the Intel 3000 series bit slice microprocessor.

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).

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.

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.

• 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 a 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 2650 was an 8-bit microprocessor introduced in the early 1970s and used in several video games and game systems (e.g. the Arcadia 2001). and in the early telesoftware broadcasts.
• 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 2513 was a character generator chip used in the TV Typewriter, Apple I, and early versions of the Apple II, as well as Atari's earliest arcade games.
• The Signetics 82S100 FPLA (Field Programmable Logic Array) was the first commercially successful user programmable logic device, the forerunner of the modern FPGA.
• 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".
• 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.