The story
Origins
Microchip Technology was founded in February 14, 1989 when General Instrument spun off its microelectronics division as a wholly owned subsidiary. The newly formed company was a supplier of programmable non-volatile memory, microcontrollers, digital signal processors, card chip on board, and consumer integrated circuits. An initial public offering (IPO) later in the year was canceled because of the October 1987 stock market crash.
Microchip Technology became an independent company in 1989 when it was acquired by a group of venture capitalists led by Sequoia Capital. In the same year, Microchip Technology announced the release of small, inexpensive 8-bit reduced instruction set computing (RISC) microcontrollers for $2.40 apiece, whereas most RISC microcontrollers were 32-bit devices selling for hundreds of dollars.
1990-2024
In 1990, 60% of Microchip Technology's sales were from the disc drive industry and the product portfolio relied heavily on commodity EEPROM products. The company was losing US$2.5 million per quarter, had less than 6 months of cash in reserve, had exhausted lines of credit, and was failing to control expenses. Early in the year, the venture capital investors accepted an offer to sell Microchip Technology to Winbond Electronics Corporation of Taiwan for $15 million. Winbond Electronics backed out of the deal after the Taiwanese stock market decreased in May 1990. Vice President of Operations, Steve Sanghi, was named president and chief operating officer of Microchip Technology in 1990. After several quarters of losses, Sanghi oversaw Microchip Technology's transition from selling commodity-based products to specialized chips, such as the RISC technology.
Microchip Technology conducted an IPO in 1993, which Fortune magazine cited as the best-performing IPO of the year with a stock appreciation of 500% and over $1 billion in market capitalization. At the end of 2015, Microchip Technology posted its 100th consecutive quarter of profitability.
In March 2021, Sanghi was replaced as CEO by Ganesh Moorthy.
2024-present
In March 2024, Microchip furloughed production staff and non-manufacturing employees were forced to take a pay-cut for two weeks. This was done again in June. In late November, Moorthy retired as CEO and Steve Sanghi was appointed interim CEO, and was subsequently announced he would continue as CEO and Chairman on a permanent basis on July 2, 2025.
In early December 2024, Sanghi announced the closure of Fab 2 in Tempe, Arizona and also announced that Microchip would suspend its application for CHIPS and Science Act funding. On February 10, 2025, Microchip announced that it would again furlough employees intermittently throughout the rest of the year.
Acquisitions
In 1995, Microchip acquired KeeLoq technology from Nanoteq of South Africa for $10M in cash. Microchip Technology used the purchase to create the Secure Data Products Group.
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On May 24, 2000, Microchip acquired a wafer fab in Puyallup, Washington that was formerly owned by Matsushita Electric Industrial Company. On October 19, 2007, due to the great recession, the facility, known as Fab 3, was sold for $30M from an unsolicited offer.
On October 27, 2000, Microchip purchased TelCom Semiconductor of Mountain View, California for $300M.
In 2002, Microchip acquired a wafer fab in Gresham, Oregon from Fujitsu for $183.5M. This fab became, and still is, Microchip's largest and is known as Fab 4.
On October 15, 2008, Microchip acquired Hampshire Company, a company that sold large-format universal touch screen controller electronics and related software.
On February 20, 2009, Microchip acquired Australia-based HI-TECH Software.
On January 11, 2010, Microchip acquired Thomas H. Lee's Sunnyvale, California-based ZeroG Wireless for an undisclosed amount after a year-long partnership. The deal allowed Microchip to provide a Wi-Fi product for its PIC microcontrollers.
In April 2010, Microchip completed the acquisition of Silicon Storage Technology (SST) from for about $292M. Microchip and Cerberus Capital Management both made offers for the company. Microchip sold several SST flash memory assets back to Bing Yeh, co-founder of SST, to another one his companies the next month.
In 2012, Microchip acquired German-based Ident Technology AG, California based Roving Networks, and Standard Microsystems Corporation.
On June 3, 2013, Microchip acquired Novocell Semiconductor, Inc. through its Silicon Storage Technology (SST) subsidiary.
In 2014, Microchip acquired Supertex, Inc and Belgian-based EqcoLogic on February 10, and Taiwan-based ISSC Technologies on May 22.
On August 3, 2015, Microchip acquired IC manufacturer Micrel for about $839M.
In January 2016, Microchip purchased San Jose, California-based Atmel for $3.56bn. JPMorgan Chase advised Microchip while Qatalyst Partners advised Atmel.
In May 2018, Microchip acquired Microsemi Corporation.
In October 2020, Microchip acquired New Zealand-based Tekron International Limited for an undisclosed amount.
In April 2024, Microchip acquired both South Korea-based VSI Co. Ltd. and Neuronix AI Labs.
In September 2026, Microchip acquired Israeli AI company Hailo.
From Wikipedia’s article on Microchip Technology, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.7