Talk:Intersil

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Were there two different Intersils in the 1970???

Either there were two unrelated companies, both named Intersil; Or the early history of Intersil shown in this article is completely wrong. Review the headline here: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/microcomputerAssociates/Microcomputer_Digest_v03n03_Sep76.pdf to see that a company named Advanced Memory Systems Inc. acquired Intersil in 1976 and used 'Intersil' as the name for the resultant company. You can see the same story in another trade-mag: https://books.google.co.th/books?id=WA07F0_qkVwC&pg=PA47&lpg=PA47 Jamesdowallen (talk) 17:20, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

I fully agree that it appears there might be two companies named Intersil, or else the article is in major error. There was an Intersil in the 1970s and 1980s which made a wide variety of ICs, including microcomputer peripherals such as the IM6402/03 UART series; their IM6402IPL UART (as opposed to many of the second-source versions of this chip, including one by Harris Semiconductor) was used in the TRS-80 Model 100 and perhaps the closely related machines from Kyocera, NEC, and Olivetti (all manufactured in Japan by Kyocera). The databooks available at http://www.bitsavers.org/components/intersil/_dataBooks/ clearly show that this company was active through the late 1970s and 1980s and was apparently bought by G.E. sometime between 1981 and 1983: the 1981 databook has "INTERSIL" logos on each datasheet, but the 1983 databook has "G.E. INTERSIL" logos. Also interestingly, the company blurb on page A-2 of the 1981 databook specifically refers to AMS, but refers to the transaction with AMS that formed the then-current Inrtersil as a merger, not an acquisition. Here is a quote of the first two paragraphs on that page, which presents a good summary of what and where this Intersil was in 1981:

Intersil is ranked among the ten largest independent manufacturers of semiconductors in the United States. The present Intersil is the result of a 1976 merger between Intersil, Inc., a major supplier of semiconductor. devices, and Advanced Memory Systems (AMS), a leading source of add-on and add-in memories for computers and computer-related equipment. This strength was further augmented in 1979 by the acquisition of Datel Systems, Inc., a company widely known for superior data acquisition products and systems.

Intersil employs over 4000 people in its three operating divisions (Semiconductor, Memory Systems and Datel-Intersil) and carries out product development and manufacturing activities at plants in Cupertino, Santa Clara and Sunnyvale, California; Mansfield, Massachusetts; Bombay, India; and Singapore. The company produces analog and digital integrated circuits, using CMOS/LSI, MOS/LSI, low-power CMOS, and bipolar LSI technologies.

I have not looked at the databooks after 1983; perhaps they will shed more light on the company history.

173.75.250.126 (talk) 17:52, 16 December 2018 (UTC)

@173.75.250.126: Some clarity is offered by this interview with an early intersil employee. The company did not start in the watch business, that happened later - as one would expect given the timing of the introduction of such watches in the 1970s. According to this account, the company originally did custom IC's, mostly analog.

They got into the watch business through Hoerni's contacts in Switzerland, which led to a contract with Omega. This, in turn, led to the formation of Eurosil which did the watch design in Munich. This reference does not specify a date, but this one could be read to suggest it was in 1973. A brief mention in Moodies states the parent company was sending equipment to them that year. However, several business-listing type books state Intesil sold Eurosil in 1975 while another states it was purchased by Diehl in 1976.

So I think this is indeed the same Intersil, just that the history is completely wrong. It appears the original editor simply copied it from the Computer History Museum, or vice-versa. Maury Markowitz (talk) 09:55, 3 June 2019 (UTC)

@Jamesdowallen:Maury Markowitz (talk)

ICL 7106 and ICL 7107

- the legendary 3 and 1/2 digit voltmeters - with automatic calibration are missing :( They have been a technological breaktrough because of sucessfull combination of analog circuts and digital logic on a single chip. Created 1975 - but still manufactured, sold and used (2022 - cca €11,-) !

"The ICL7106 and 7107 were released by Intersil about a year after the 8020 was announced. What Intersil did to get around exclusivity of the Fluke chips was to mask off the internal switch that allowed the Fluke chip to switch between 200mVFS and 2VFS. It's this internal switch that prevents a 7106 from being used as a sub for the 429100 chip. As I mentioned in an earlier post, when Fluke got a hold of the 7106, it still had the Fluke Logo embedded in the Silicon. I wasn't involved with the lawsuit later filed, but it was settled out of court because frankly, Fluke could not afford to lose their relationship with Intersil."

"If we’re to design a similar product today, the 7106 would definitely be replaced with a micro-controller and a more capable analog front end. And we could choose from a wide range and type of displays running off standard protocols such as SPI or I²C. But the 7106 and others in its range are still available today, almost 40 years after they were first introduced. It seems there may still be a lot of use cases where selecting this device is justified. Especially if the product requires a no-fuss design which doesn’t need to connect to a computer, must be handheld, consume low power, and not require any software calibration." 85.216.197.77 (talk) 23:22, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

References