STMicroelectronics N.V. commonly referred to as ST or STMicro is a multinational corporation and technology company of French-Italian origin headquartered in Plan-les-Ouates near Geneva, Switzerland and listed on the New York Stock Exchange, on the Euronext Paris in Paris (CAC 40) and on the Borsa Italiana in Milan (FTSE MIB). ST is the largest European semiconductor contract manufacturing and design company. The company resulted from the merger of two government-owned semiconductor companies in 1987: Thomson Semiconducteurs of France and SGS Microelettronica of Italy.
History
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: ATES (Aquila Tubi e Semiconduttori), a vacuum tube and semiconductor maker headquartered in L'Aquila, the regional capital of the region of Abruzzo in Southern Italy, which in 1961 changed its name to Azienda Tecnica ed Elettronica del Sud and relocated its manufacturing plant in the Industrial Zone of Catania, in Sicily; Società Generale Semiconduttori (founded in 1957 by Jewish-Italian engineer, politician, and industrialist Adriano Olivetti).
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: the semiconductor activities of the French electronics company Thomson; in 1985 it bought Mostek, a US company founded in 1969 as a spin-off of Texas Instruments, from United Technologies; Silec, founded in 1977; Eurotechnique, founded in 1979 in Rousset, Bouches-du-Rhône as a joint-venture between Saint-Gobain of France and US-based National Semiconductor; EFCIS (Étude et la Fabrication de Circuits Intégrés Spéciaux), founded in 1972 at CEA-Leti; SESCOSEM, founded in 1969.
At the time of the merger of these two companies in 1987, the new corporation was named SGS-THOMSON but 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:
In 1989, British company Inmos known for its transputer microprocessors from parent Thorn EMI; In 1994, Canada-based Nortel's semiconductor activities; In 1999, UK, Edinburgh based VLSI-Vision CMOS Image Sensor research & development company, a spin-out of Edinburgh University. Incorporated in 1 January 2000, the company became STMicroelectronics Imaging Division, currently part of the Analog MEMS and Sensors business group; In 2000, WaferScale Integration Inc. (WSI, Fremont, California), a vendor of EPROM and flash memory-based programmable system-chips; In 2002, Alcatel's Microelectronics division, which along with the incorporation of smaller ventures such as UK company, Synad Ltd, helped the company expand into the Wireless-LAN market; In 2007, US-based Genesis Microchip. Genesis Microchip is known for their strength in video processing technology (Faroudja) and has design centres located in Santa Clara, California, Toronto, Taipei City and Bangalore.
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. 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.