STMicroelectronics

ST was formed in 1987 by the merger of two government-owned semiconductor companies: Italian SGS Microelettronica (where SGS stands for Società Generale Semiconduttori, "Semiconductors' General Company"), and French Thomson Semiconducteurs, the semiconductor arm of Thomson.


SGS Microelettronica originated in 1972 from a previous merger of two companies:


Thomson Semiconducteurs was created in 1982 by the French government's widespread nationalization of industries following the election of socialist François Mitterrand to the presidency. It included:


At the time of the merger of these two companies in 1987, the new corporation was named SGS-THOMSON and was led by chief executive officer Pasquale Pistorio. ^[3] The company took its current name of STMicroelectronics in May 1998 following Thomson's sale of its shares. After its creation ST was ranked 14th among the top 20 semiconductor suppliers with sales of around US$850 million. The company has participated in the consolidation of the semiconductor industry since its formation, with acquisitions including:


On December 8, 1994, the company completed its initial public offering on the Paris and New York stock exchanges. Owner Thomson SA sold its stake in the company in 1998 when the company also listed on the Italian Bourse in Milan. In 2002, Motorola and TSMC joined ST and Philips in a new technology partnership. The Crolles 2 Alliance was created with a new 12" wafer manufacturing facility located in Crolles, France. In 2005, chief executive officer Pasquale Pistorio was succeeded by Carlo Bozotti, who then headed the memory products division and had been with the company’s predecessor since 1977.^[3] By 2005, ST was ranked fifth, behind Intel, Samsung, Texas Instruments and Toshiba, but ahead of Infineon, Renesas, NEC, NXP Semiconductors, and Freescale. The company was the largest European semiconductors supplier, ahead of Infineon and NXP.


Early in 2007, NXP Semiconductors (formerly Philips Semiconductors) and Freescale (formerly Motorola Semiconductors) decided to stop their participation in Crolles 2 Alliance. Under the terms of the agreement the Alliance came to an end on December 31, 2007.^[6] On May 22, 2007, ST and Intel created a joint venture in the memory application called Numonyx: this new company merged ST and Intel Flash Memory activities. Semiconductor market consolidation continued with ST and NXP announcing on April 10, 2008, the creation of a new joint venture of their mobile activities, with ST owning 80% of the new company and NXP 20%. This joint venture began on August 20, 2008. On February 10, 2009, ST Ericsson, a joint venture bringing together ST-NXP Wireless and Ericsson Mobile Platforms, was established.^[7]


ST Ericsson was a multinational manufacturer of wireless products and semiconductors, supplying to mobile device manufacturers.^[8] ST-Ericsson was a 50/50 joint venture of STMicroelectronics and Ericsson established on February 3, 2009, and dissolved on August 2, 2013. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, it was a fabless company, outsourcing semiconductor manufacturing to foundry companies.


In 2011, ST announced the creation of a joint lab with Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies. The lab focuses on research and innovation in biorobotics, smart systems and microelectronics.^[9] Past collaborations with Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies included DustBot, a platform that integrated self-navigating "service robots" for waste collection.^[9]


In 2018, chief executive Carlo Bozotti was succeeded by Jean-Marc Chery.^[10] In 2023, STMicroelectronics partnered with Synopsys to design a working chip on Microsoft Corp’s cloud, marking the first time AI software had been utilized for chip design. ^[11]