Cypress Semiconductor

Defunct American semiconductor company

Cypress Semiconductor Corporation

Company type| Subsidiary

Traded as

* Nasdaq: CY
* NYSE: CY

Industry| Semiconductors
Founded| 1982; 43 years ago (1982)
Defunct| 2020 (2020)
Fate| Acquired by Infineon Technologies
Headquarters| San Jose, California, U.S.
Revenue|  US$2.48 billion (2018)

Operating income

|  US$164.43 million (2018)

Net income

|  US$354.83 million (2018)
Total assets|  US$3.69 billion (2018)
Total equity|  US$2.12 billion (2018)

Number of employees

| 5,846 (2018)
Divisions|

* Programmable Systems
* Memory Products
* Data Communications
* Emerging Technologies

Website| cypress.com
Footnotes / references
[1]
An EPLD from Cypress Semiconductor in a PLCC-package A Cypress USB microcontroller

Cypress Semiconductor Corporation was an American semiconductor design and manufacturing company. It offered NOR flash memories,[2] F-RAM and SRAM Traveo microcontrollers,[3] PSoCs,[4] PMICs,[5] capacitive touch-sensing controllers,[6] Wireless BLE Bluetooth Low-Energy[7] and USB connectivity solutions.

Its headquarters were in San Jose, California, with operations in the United States, Ireland, India and the Philippines.[8]

In April 2016, Cypress Semiconductors announced the acquisition of Broadcom’s Wireless Internet of Things Business. The deal was closed in July 2016.[9]

In June 2019, Infineon Technologies announced it would acquire Cypress for $9.4 billion.[10][11] The deal closed in April 2020, making Infineon one of the world's top 10 semiconductor manufacturers.[12][13]

Some of its main competitors included Microchip Technology, NXP Semiconductors, Renesas Electronics and Micron Technology.

## History

[edit]

### Founding and early years

[edit]

It was founded by T. J. Rodgers and others (Fritz Beyerlein, Fred Jenne, Steven H. Kaplan, R. Michael Starnes and Lowell Turriff) [14] from Advanced Micro Devices. It was formed in 1982 with backing by Sevin Rosen and went public in 1986. The company initially focused on the design and development of high speed CMOS SRAMs, EEPROMs, PAL devices, and TTL devices. Two years after going public the company switched from the NASDAQ to the New York Stock Exchange. In October 2009, the company announced it would switch its listing to the NASDAQ on November 12, 2009.[15]

The AgigA Tech, Inc. subsidiary sells non-volatile random-access memory (RAM). It was acquired during the Simtek purchase in August 2008, and marks the second time that Cypress acquired a start-up venture from founder, Ron Sartore, who also co-founded Anchor Chips.[16] The division was sold to the Unigen Corporation in May 2021.

In November 2011, Cypress also backed a packaging firm called Deca Technologies, Inc.[17]

### 2015

[edit]

In December 2014, Cypress Semiconductor merged with Spansion in an all-stock deal worth $1.59 billion. The merger represented the combination of two companies that were No. 1 in their respective memory markets and have successfully diversified into embedded processing.[18]

In March 2015, Cypress and Spansion completed of the transactions of the merger in an all-stock, tax-free transaction valued at approximately $5 billion. Cypress shareholders approved the issuance of 2.457 shares of Cypress stock to Spansion shareholders for each Spansion share they own. The merger is expected to achieve more than $135 million in cost synergies on an annualized basis within three years and to be accretive to non-GAAP earnings within the first full year after the transaction closes.[19] At the time of its merger with Spansion in 2015, Cypress Semiconductor had more than 7,000 US and foreign patents.[20] Cypress Semiconductor is a component of the Ocean Tomo 300 Patent Index.[21]

Cypress attempted to acquire Integrated Silicon Solution Inc. in 2015 but was thwarted by a competing bid by Chinese buyer consortium Uphill Investment Co., which included GigaDevice, a major competitor in the NOR flash market. This buyer consortium offered a higher bid than Cypress and successfully acquired ISSI for $731 million.[22]

Also in 2015, Cypress tried to acquire Atmel, but was outbid by Dialog Semiconductor (in the end, Microchip Technology made the deal).[23]

### 2016

[edit]

In April 2016, Cypress announced the acquisition of Broadcom’s Wireless Internet of Things (IoT) business and related assets in an all-cash transaction valued at $550 million. Under the terms of the deal, Cypress will acquire Broadcom's Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Zigbee IoT product lines and intellectual property, along with its WICED brand and developer ecosystem.[24]

In April 2016, it was announced that Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. will invest $60 million in Deca and will license Deca’s M-Series fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP) technologies and processes. As part of the agreement, ASE Group and Deca will jointly develop the M-Series fan-out manufacturing process and will expand production of chip-scale packages using this technology.[25]

Cypress named Hassane El-Khoury its president and chief executive officer, and announced he will join the board of directors on Aug. 11, 2016.[8]

### 2017 board dispute

[edit]

In April 2017 Delaware Chancery Court decided Cypress Semiconductor Corp. had to give former CEO Rodgers insight into internal documents related to possible violations of Cypress's Code of Business Conduct and Ethics by executive chairman Ray Bingham.[26]

Bingham, who is a founding member of venture capital firm Canyon Bridge Capital Partners Inc,[27] a China state-backed private equity fund, was criticized for the conflict of interest leading Cypress and Canyon Bridge as both companies possibly focus on the same acquisition targets.[28]

Rodgers ran a proxy contest against the board, aiming for veteran tech industry board directors Daniel McCranie and Camillo Martino to replace Ray Bingham and Cypress director Éric Benhamou.[26]

On June 12, 2017 it was made public that Ray Bingham stepped down from the board.[29] Prior to Bingham’s resignation, shareholder-advisory firms ISS, Glass Lewis and Egan-Jones had recommended McCranie and Martino, Rodgers's nominees, citing "additional - and sharper - questions not only regarding the board's handling of this situation but also regarding the potential for conflicts of interest inherent in Bingham's dual roles."[30]

On June 20, 2017, both of Rodgers's nominees won victories by substantial margins.[31]

### 2019-2020 merger

[edit]

In 2019, under CEO Hassane El-Khouri, the company agreed to the offer of Infineon Technologies valued about $9 billions (that represents the all-cash buyout price of $23.85 per share).[32] This purchase price premium of 55% was the 4th highest premium paid for a public semiconductor company with greater than $1 Billion in value since 2014.[33] The price also represented 18.2 times next twelve month average analyst EBITDA estimates, which was the 4th highest EBITDA multiple paid for a public semiconductor company with a value greater than $1 Billion since 2014.[34] The acquisition was announced complete on April 17, 2020, ending the independent history of Cypress Semiconductors.[12]

## See also

[edit]

* Companies portal
* San Francisco Bay Area portal

* SunPower
* List of semiconductor fabrication plants
* List of S&P 400 companies
* Kr00k, vulnerability in some Cypress WiFi chips.
* icDirectory Limited

## References

[edit]

1. ^ "US SEC: Form 10-K Cypress Semiconductor Corporation". U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Retrieved March 3, 2018.
2. ^ "Cypress Semiconductor Semper™ NOR Flash Memory Storage Solution". allaboutcircuits.com. 2021-09-23. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
3. ^ "Matching non-volatile memory selection to automotive-system requirements". embedded.com. 2017-10-09. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
4. ^ "Cypress announces PSoC 4 architecture for ARM Cortex-M0 devices". embedded.com. 2013-03-20. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
5. ^ "Hardware Evaluation for the Cypress S6AE102A/S6AE103A Eval Kit for Energy Harvesting Applications". allaboutcircuits.com. 2018-05-08. Retrieved 2024-05-24.
6. ^ "Cypress: automotive touchscreen controller with cryptographic engine". embedded.com. 2018-01-17. Retrieved 2024-05-29.
7. ^ "Bluetooth Low Energy Module with 400-Meter Range". eepower.com. 2016-03-14. Retrieved 2024-05-29.
8. ^ a b Clark, Don (2016-08-11). "Cypress Semiconductor Picks New CEO From Auto Tech". Wall Street Journal. ISSN 0099-9660. Retrieved 2016-08-23.
9. ^ "Cypress Closes $550 Million Acquisition Of Broadcom's 'Internet Of Things' Business". Forbes. July 5, 2016. Retrieved 2019-06-03.
10. ^ "Infineon acquires Cypress Semiconductor for $9.4B". SiliconANGLE. 2019-06-02. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
11. ^ Stangel, Luke (June 3, 2019). "Infineon snaps up San Jose's Cypress Semiconductor in $10B deal". Silicon Valley Business Journal. Retrieved August 27, 2021.
12. ^ a b Chan, Rodney (April 17, 2020). "Infineon completes acquisition of Cypress". DIGITIMES. Retrieved April 17, 2020.
13. ^ "Infineon Technologies AG completes acquisition of Cypress Semiconductor Corporation". Cypress Semiconductor Corporation. Archived from the original on 2020-05-10. Retrieved 2020-05-15.
14. ^ "Cypress Semiconductor Corporation: 1991, 1990, 1989, and 1987" (PDF). Company Backgrounders by Dataquest. pp. 1–28. Retrieved August 27, 2021.
15. ^ "Cypress Semiconductor Corp. to Switch Stock Exchange Listing to NASDAQ on November 12". 2009-10-30. Retrieved 2009-10-30.
16. ^ "Ron Sartore". Archived from the original on 2011-08-05. Retrieved 2017-08-26.
17. ^ Dylan McGrath, EE Times. "Cypress-backed packaging firm launches." November 9, 2011. Retrieved November 9, 2011.
18. ^ "Cypress and Spansion Complete $5 Billion All-Stock Merger". Archived from the original on 2016-05-13. Retrieved 2016-06-07.
19. ^ PRNewsWire. "Cypress and Spansion to Merge in $4 Billion All-Stock Transaction." Dec 1, 2014. Retrieved Jul 6, 2017.
20. ^ "Cypress Semiconductor 2015 Form 10-K Annual Report". Archived from the original on 2016-05-11.
21. ^ 300® Patent Index. Ocean Tomo. Retrieved on 2013-11-20.
22. ^ "ISSI Shareholders Approve Acquisition by Uphill Investment". Bloomberg. June 30, 2015.
23. ^ "Cypress Semiconductor drops bid for chipmaker Atmel". Reuters. September 28, 2015.
24. ^ "Cypress to Pay $550 Million for Broadcom's IoT Business | EE Times". EETimes. Retrieved 2016-06-07.
25. ^ "Cypress Subsidiary Deca Technologies to Receive $60 Million Investment from ASE". Archived from the original on 2016-05-04. Retrieved 2016-06-07.
26. ^ a b "Cypress Semiconductor forced to delay annual meeting by Delaware court". Reuters. June 1, 2017. Retrieved 2017-06-20.
27. ^ "Exclusive: Chinese government money backs buyout firm's deal for U.S. chip maker". Reuters. November 29, 2016. Retrieved 2017-06-20.
28. ^ "Cypress Semiconductor Must Turn Over Docs to Former CEO". www.bna.com. Retrieved 2017-06-20.
29. ^ "Cypress Executive Chairman Ray Bingham steps down from board". Reuters. June 12, 2017. Retrieved 2017-06-20.
30. ^ Austin, Elliott. "STMicroelectronics N.V. (STM) and Cypress Semiconductor Corporation (CY) Swings Under News Buzzer". Archived from the original on 2017-06-07. Retrieved 2017-06-20.
31. ^ "Cypress Stockholders Elect T.J. Rodgers' Nominees to Board". EETimes. June 20, 2017. Archived from the original on 2017-06-29. Retrieved 2017-06-20.
32. ^ Bylund, Anders (2019-10-30). "Cypress Semiconductor Takes One Last Bow on the Earnings Stage". The Motley Fool. Retrieved 2020-04-17.
33. ^ https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/791915/000110465919033288/a19-10962_2ex99d5.htm 8-K Filing with SEC Page=3
34. ^ https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/791915/000110465919033288/a19-10962_2ex99d5.htm 8-K Filing with SEC Page=4

## External links

[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Cypress Semiconductor.

* Official website
* Business data for Cypress Semiconductor Corporation:

* SEC filings

* v
* t
* e

Programmable logic

Concepts|

* ASIC
* SoC
* FPGA
* Logic block
* CPLD
* EPLD
* PLA
* PAL
* GAL
* PSoC
* Reconfigurable computing
* Xputer
* Soft microprocessor
* Circuit underutilization
* High-level synthesis
* Hardware acceleration

Languages|

* Verilog
* A
* AMS
* VHDL
* AMS
* VITAL
* SystemVerilog
* DPI
* SystemC
* AHDL
* Handel-C
* Lola
* PSL
* UPF
* PALASM
* ABEL
* CUPL
* C to HDL
* Flow to HDL
* MyHDL
* ELLA
* Chisel

Companies|

* Accellera
* Achronix
* AMD
* Aldec
* Arm
* Cadence
* Infineon
* Intel
* Lattice
* Microchip Technology
* NXP
* Siemens
* Synopsys
* Texas Instruments

Products|

| Hardware|

* iCE
* Stratix
* Virtex

|

Software|

* Intel Quartus Prime
* Xilinx ISE
* Vivado
* ModelSim
* VTR
* Simulators

Intellectual
property|

| Proprietary|

* ARC
* ARM Cortex-M
* LEON
* LatticeMico8
* MicroBlaze
* PicoBlaze
* Nios
* Nios II

|

Open-source|

* JOP
* LatticeMico32
* OpenCores
* OpenRISC
* 1200
* Power ISA
* Libre-SOC
* Microwatt
* RISC-V

* v
* t
* e

Open Handset Alliance

Mobile
operators|

* Bouygues Telecom
* China Mobile
* China Telecommunications Corporation
* China Unicom
* Gruppo TIM
* KDDI
* Nepal Telecom
* NTT Docomo
* SoftBank Group
* Deutsche Telekom
* Telefónica
* Telus
* Vodafone

Software
companies|

* Access
* Ascender Corporation
* eBay
* Google
* Myriad Group
* Nuance Communications
* NXP Software
* Omron
* PacketVideo
* SVOX
* VisualOn

Semiconductor
companies|

* AKM Semiconductor
* Arm
* Audience
* Broadcom
* CSR plc (joined as SiRF)
* Cypress Semiconductor
* Freescale Semiconductor
* Gemalto
* Intel
* Marvell Technology Group
* MediaTek
* MIPS Technologies
* Nvidia
* Qualcomm
* Qualcomm Atheros
* Renesas Electronics
* ST-Ericsson (joined as Ericsson Mobile Platforms)
* Synaptics
* Texas Instruments

Handset
makers|

* Acer
* Alcatel Mobile Phones
* Asus
* Chaudhary Group (with association of LG)
* CCI
* Dell
* Foxconn
* Garmin
* HTC
* Huawei (banned 2019)
* Kyocera
* Lenovo Mobile
* LG Electronics
* Motorola Mobility
* NEC Corporation
* Samsung Electronics
* Sharp Corporation
* Sony Mobile
* Toshiba
* ZTE

Commercialization
companies|

* Accenture
* Borqs
* Sasken Communication Technologies
* Teleca
* The Astonishing Tribe
* Wind River Systems
* Wipro Technologies

See also|

* Android
* Dalvik virtual machine
* Google Nexus
* T-Mobile G1

Authority control databases

International|

* ISNI
* VIAF

National|

* United States
* Australia

People|

* Trove

Other|

* Yale LUX

*[v]: View this template
*[t]: Discuss this template
*[e]: Edit this template