Company History
Intersil was founded in 1967 by Jean Hoerni to produce digital watches. When microprocessors emerged to the market in the 1970s, Intersil participated with its 12-bit IM6100, which was the first microprocessor produced in CMOS technology and emulated the PDP-8 instruction set. In 1988 Intersil was taken over by Harris Semiconductor, who had offered e. g. the IM6100 as second source. Harris combined these activities with the semiconductor divisions of Radiation Incorporated, General Electric and RCA they had taken over before. In 1999 Harris spun off its entire semiconductor division and Intersil was reborn with the largest IPO in American semiconductor industry history. Next to digital circuits like microprocessors and memories like the 1k-bit CMOS RAM IM6508 and CMOS EPROMS IM6604/IM6654 Intersil designed famous analogue ICs like the ICM8038 waveform generator.
Intersil has focused on growth and opportunities in the “pure-play,” high-performance analog semiconductor market.
Intersil's discrete power business was purchased for $338M in 2001 by Fairchild Semiconductor, leaving Intersil to focus on its other businesses.
In February 2008, Richard M. Beyer resigned as CEO to pursue another opportunity and was succeeded by Dave Bell, who soon after restructured the company from five divisions to two.
Intersil acquired fabless semiconductor company Techwell for US$370 million on March 22, 2010.
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