LSI Corporation

1981–2004[edit]

LSI Logic Corporation was incorporated in November 1980 ^[6] by Wilfred J. Corrigan and began operating in early 1981 using leased facilities in Santa Clara, California. Corrigan recruited co-founders Bill O'Meara (VP Marketing and Sales), Rob Walker (VP Engineering) and Mitchell "Mick" Bohn (CFO) as co-founders. Initial funding of $6 million came from a consortium of venture capitalists, including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers II, Institutional Venture Partners, and Technical Development Capital Ltd.^[7] A second round of $16 million in funding from Sequoia Capital,^[6] a group of investment bankers from the UK and First Interstate Bank came In March 1982.


The initial plan called for a line of CMOS gate arrays created from “masterslices” which were uncommitted transistors customized to a specific application by the deposition of unique metal interconnections. The intention was to have the masterslices manufactured by external semiconductor companies and then do the metallization themselves. In order to jump start the business, they licensed an existing CMOS gate array design from California Devices Inc. (CDI) and reverse engineered and improved on an ECL gate array design from Motorola.^[8]


The first interactive CAD system was called LSI Design System (LDS). The initial EDA flow was based on simulation from TEGAS and place and route from Silvar-Lisco, integrated on Megatek hardware. What made them unique from other ASIC vendors at the time was that they willing to ship the software to their customers rather than keeping it in-house, which was the strategy used by market leaders at the time. In 1982 they started development of their own in-house CAD tools and moved to Silicon Graphics hardware. By 1988, the EDA industry had developed enough that customers wanted to be able to use 3rd party tools.^[8]


Sales grew rapidly and they were able to launch a successful initial public offering on the Nasdaq exchange on May, 13 1983. The offering was underwritten by Morgan Stanley & Co and Hambrecht & Quist. 7 million shares of common stock were issued at a price of $21 per share. The stock hit a peak of $25.50 during the day and closed at $24 a share which valued the company at $588M.^[7] Once underwriters options were exercised the total offering brought in $153 million. Stock symbol: LLSI.


In April 1984, LSI Logic formed a Japanese affiliate, Nihon LSI Logic Corporation, and raised $20M in a private offering.


In June 1984, LSI Logic formed a British subsidiary, LSI Logic Ltd, and raised $20M in through a private placement.


In February 1985, LSI Logic formed a Canadian subsidiary, LSI Logic Corporation of Canada, Inc.


In 1985, the firm entered into a joint venture called Nihon Semiconductor, Inc. together with Kawasaki Steel—Japan's third largest steel manufacturer—to build a $100 million wafer fabrication plant in Tsukuba, Japan.^[9]


In 1987, LSI Logic was among the 14 founding members of SEMATECH, but later withdrew from the organization in January 1992.^[10][11][12]


In December 1987, MIPS Computer Systems brought on LSI Logic as a licensee to ability to fabricate the R2000 and R3000 chipsets and provided a license for LSI Logic to implement the MIPS I instruction set architecture (ISA) in ASIC form.


In March 1988, LSI Logic agrees to manufacture and sell the SPARC RISC microprocessor under license from SUN Microsystems. ^[13]


In October 1988, LSI Logic acquired a controlling stake in Video Seven Inc., a designer, manufacturer, and marketer of PC graphics boards^[14]


In April 1989, LSI Logic merged its G-2 Inc PC chipsets and Video Seven Inc. graphics chip buses to create Headland Technology Inc, a subsidiary to be run by LSI Logic founder Bill O'Meara^[15]


In October 1989, LSI Logic transferred its stock listing from NASDAQ: LLSI to NYSE: LSI.^[16]


In July 1991, LSI Logic entered into an agreement with Sanyo Electric of Japan to make a set of chips that translate an HDTV signal into a television image.^[17][18]


In July 1992, LSI Logic announced CoreWare subsystems as part of its ASIC design flow .^[19]


In 1993, Sony Computer Entertainment chose LSI Logic as their ASIC partner, charged with fitting the PlayStation CPU on a single chip.^[20] LSI's CoreWare could do it, while other offers made to Sony needed two chips.^[20] Sony also worked with LSI's engineers develop the graphics engine, DMA controller, I/O and bus controllers.^[20]


In 1995, LSI Logic acquired all the remaining shares (45%) of its Canadian subsidiary LSI Logic Corporation of Canada, Inc., which it did not already own.^[21]


In 1997, LSI Logic acquired Mint Technology, an engineering services company.^[21]


In August 1998, LSI Logic acquired Symbios Logic from Hyundai Electronic for $760 million cash.^[22]


In February 1999, LSI Logic acquired Seeq Technology for $106 million in stock, adding physical-layer based Ethernet technology to LSI's product line.^[23]


In January 2000, LSI Logic established a $50M venture fund to invest in startups in the communication sector.^[24]


In May 2000, LSI Logic acquired IntraServer for $70 million, with expectations to add their rapidly expanding customer base to LSI's own.^[25][26]