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    Intel

    Intel Corp. history, profile and history video

     Intel Corp. designs, manufactures and sells computer components and related products. It designs and manufactures computing and communication components, such as microprocessors, chipsets, motherboards, and wireless and wired connectivity products. The company develops advanced integrated digital technology products, primarily integrated circuits, for industries such as computing and communications.It also develops platforms, which it defines as integrated suites of digital computing technologies that are designed and configured to work together to provide an optimized user computing solution. The company operates its business through five segments: PC Client Group, Data Center Group, Other Intel Architecture Group, Software & Services, Intel Mobile Communications, Intelligent Systems Group, Netbook and Tablet Group, Ultra-Mobility Group, McAfee, Wind River Software Group, Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group. The PC Client Group offers products that are incorporated into notebook platforms and desktop computers for consumers and business like microprocessors and related chipsets and motherboards, which are designed for the notebook and desktop (including high-end enthusiast PCs) market segments; and wireless connectivity products. The Data Center Group offers products that provide leading performance, energy efficiency, and virtualization technology for server, workstation, and storage platforms. It delivers microprocessors and related chipsets and motherboards, which are designed for the server, workstation, and storage computing market segments; and wired network connectivity products. The Other Intel Architecture Group offer products that are designed for use in the mobile communications, embedded, netbook, tablet, and smart phones. The Intel Mobile Communications segment provides mobile phone components, such as baseband processors, radio frequency transceivers, and power management chips. Intelligent Systems Group delivers microprocessors and related chipsets for embedded applications. The Netbook & Tablet Group delivers microprocessors and related chipsets for the netbook and tablet market segments. The Ultra-Mobility Group delivers low-power Intel architecture-based products in the next-generation handheld market segment. The Software & Services Group consists of the three sub-operating groups: McAfee, Wind River Software Group and Software & Services Group. The McAfee Group, is operated by the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, McAfee, Inc., delivers software products for endpoint security, system security, consumer security, network security, and risk and compliance. The Wind River Software Group, operated by the company’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Wind River Systems, Inc., develops and licenses embedded and mobile device software products, including operating systems, virtualization technologies, middleware, and development tools. The Software and Services Group delivers software products and services that promote Intel Architecture as the platform of choice for software development. The Non-Volatile Memory Solutions Group delivers NAND flash memory products for use in solidstate drives (SSDs), portable memory storage devices, digital camera memory cards, and other devices. The company was founded by Robert Norton Noyce and Gordon Earle Moore in 1968 and is headquartered in Santa Clara, CA.

    “Intel History

    Origins

    Intel was originally founded in Mountain View, California in 1968 by Gordon E. Moore (of “Moore’s Law” fame, a chemist and physicist), Robert Noyce (a physicist and co-inventor of the integrated circuit), Arthur Rock (investor and venture capitalist), and Max Palevsky. Moore and Noyce came from Fairchild Semiconductor and were Intel’s first two employees. Rock was not an employee, but he was an investor and Chairman of the Board. The total initial investment in Intel was $2.5 million convertible debentures and $10,000 from Rock. Just 2 years later, Intel completed their initial public offering (IPO), raising $6.8 million ($23.50 per share). Intel’s third employee was Andy Grove, a chemical engineer, who later ran the company through much of the 1980s and the high-growth 1990s.

    Moore and Noyce initially wanted to name the company “Moore Noyce”. homophone for “more noise” – an ill-suited name for an electronicscompany, since noise in electronics is usually very undesirable and typically associated with bad interference. Instead they used the name NM Electronics for almost a year, before deciding to call their company Integrated Electronics or “Intel” for short.Since “Intel” was already trademarked by the hotel chain Intelco, they had to buy the rights for the name.

    Early history

    At its founding, Intel was distinguished by its ability to make semiconductors. Its first product, in 1969, was the 3101 Schottky TTL bipolar64-bit static random-access memory (SRAM), which was nearly twice as fast as earlier Schottky diode implementations by Fairchild and the Electrotechnical Laboratory in Tsukuba, Japan.In the same year Intel also produced the 3301 Schottky bipolar 1024-bit read-only memory (ROM) and the first commercial metal–oxide–semiconductor field-effect transistor (MOSFET) silicon gate SRAM chip, the 256-bit 1101. Intel’s business grew during the 1970s as it expanded and improved its manufacturing processes and produced a wider range of products, still dominated by various memory devices.

    While Intel created the first commercially available microprocessor (Intel 4004) in 1971 and one of the first microcomputers in 1972, by the early 1980s its business was dominated by dynamic random-access memory chips. However, increased competition from Japanese semiconductor manufacturers had, by 1983, dramatically reduced the profitability of this market, and the sudden success of the IBM personal computer convinced then-CEO Andrew Grove to shift the company’s focus to microprocessors, and to change fundamental aspects of that business model.

    By the end of the 1980s this decision had proven successful. Buoyed by its fortuitous position as microprocessor supplier to IBM and IBM’s competitors within the rapidly growing personal computer market, Intel embarked on a 10-year period of unprecedented growth as the primary (and most profitable) hardware supplier to the PC industry. By launching its Intel Inside marketing campaign in 1991, Intel was able to associate brand loyalty with consumer selection, so that by the end of the 1990s, its line of Pentium processors had become a household name.

    Slowing demand and challenges to dominance

    After 2000, growth in demand for high-end microprocessors slowed. Competitors, notably AMD (Intel’s largest competitor in its primary x86 architecture market), garnered significant market share, initially in low-end and mid-range processors but ultimately across the product range, and Intel’s dominant position in its core market was greatly reduced. In the early 2000s then-CEO Craig Barrett attempted to diversify the company’s business beyond semiconductors, but few of these activities were ultimately successful.

    Intel had also for a number of years been embroiled in litigation. US law did not initially recognize intellectual property rights related to microprocessor topology (circuit layouts), until the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act of 1984, a law sought by Intel and the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA). During the late 1980s and 1990s (after this law was passed) Intel also sued companies that tried to develop competitor chips to the 80386 CPU.The lawsuits were noted to significantly burden the competition with legal bills, even if Intel lost the suits. Antitrust allegations had been simmering since the early 1990s and had been the cause of one lawsuit against Intel in 1991. In 2004 and 2005, AMD brought further claims against Intel related to unfair competition.

    In 2005, CEO Paul Otellini reorganized the company to refocus its core processor and chipset business on platforms (enterprise, digital home, digital health, and mobility).

    Regaining of momentum

    In 2007, Intel unveiled its Core microarchitecture to widespread critical acclaim; the product range was perceived as an exceptional leap in processor performance that at a stroke regained much of its leadership of the field.In 2008, Intel had another “tick,” when it introduced the Penryn microarchitecture, which was 45 nm. Later that year, Intel released a processor with the Nehalem architecture. Nehalem had positive reviews.

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    Sale of XScale processor business

    On June 27, 2006, the sale of Intel’s XScale assets was announced. Intel agreed to sell the XScale processor business to Marvell Technology Group for an estimated $600 million and the assumption of unspecified liabilities. The move was intended to permit Intel to focus its resources on its core x86 and server businesses, and the acquisition completed on November 9, 2006.

    Acquisitions

    On August 19, 2010, Intel announced that it planned to purchase McAfee, a manufacturer of computer security technology. The purchase price was $7.68 billion, and the companies said that if the deal were approved, new products would be released early in 2011. On January 26, 2011, the European Union approved the acquisition, after Intel agreed to provide rival security firms with all necessary information that would allow their products to use Intel’s chips and personal computers. After the acquisition, Intel had about 90,000 employees, including about 12,000 software engineers.

    On August 30, 2010, Intel and Infineon Technologies announced that Intel would acquire Infineon’s Wireless Solutions business. Intel planned to use Infineon’s technology in laptops, smart phones, netbooks, tablets and embedded computers in consumer products, eventually integrating its wireless modem into Intel’s silicon chips.

    In March 2011, Intel bought most of the assets of Cairo-based SySDSoft.

    In July 2011, Intel announced that it had agreed to acquire Fulcrum Microsystems Inc., a company specializing in network switches.The company was previously included on the EE Times list of 60 Emerging Startups.

    On October 1, 2011, Intel reached a deal to acquire Telmap, an Israeli-based navigation software company. The purchase price was not disclosed, but Israeli media reported values around $300 million to $350 million.

    In July 2012, Intel Corporation agreed to buy 10 percent shares of ASML Holding NV for $2.1 billion and another $1 billon for 5 percent shares that need shareholder approval to fund relevant research and development efforts, as part of a EUR3.3 billion ($4.1 billion) deal to accelerate the development of 450-millimeter wafer technology and extreme ultra-violet lithography by as much as two years.

    In July 2013, Intel confirmed the acquisition of Omek Interactive, an Israeli company that makes technology for gesture-based interfaces, without disclosing the monetary value of the deal. An official statement from Intel read: “The acquisition of Omek Interactive will help increase Intel’s capabilities in the delivery of more immersive perceptual computing experiences.” One report estimated the value of the acquisition between US$30 million and $50 million.

    The acquisition of a Spanish natural language recognition startup named Indisys was announced on September 13, 2013. The terms of the deal were not disclosed but an email from an Intel representative stated: “Intel has acquired Indisys, a privately held company based in Seville, Spain. The majority of Indisys employees joined Intel. We signed the agreement to acquire the company on May 31 and the deal has been completed.” Indysis explains that its artificial intelligence (AI) technology “is a human image, which converses fluently and with common sense in multiple languages and also works in different platforms.

    Expansions

    In 2008, Intel spun off key assets of a solar startup business effort to form an independent company, SpectraWatt Inc. However, as of 2011, SpectraWatt has filed for bankruptcy.

    February 2011: Intel announced plans to build a new microprocessor manufacturing facility in Chandler, Arizona, which is expected to be completed in 2013, at a cost of $5 billion. It will accommodate 4,000 employees. The company produces three-quarters of their products in the United States, although three-quarters of their revenue comes from overseas.

    April 2011: Intel began a pilot project with ZTE Corporation to produce smartphones using the Intel Atom processor for China’s domestic market. This project is intended to challenge the domination of ARM processors in mobile phones.

    December 2011: Intel announced that it reorganized several of its business units to form a new mobile and communications group. This group will be responsible for the company’s smartphone, tablet and wireless efforts, and will be headed by Hermann Eul and Mike Bell.

    Opening up the foundries

    Finding itself with excess fab capacity after the failure of the Ultrabook to gain market traction and with PC sales declining, in 2013 Intel reached a foundry agreement to produce chips for Altera using 14-nm process. General Manager of Intel’s custom foundry division Sunit Rikhi indicated that Intel would pursue further such deals in the future. This was after poor sales of Windows 8 hardware caused a major retrenchment for most of the major semiconductor manufacturers, except for Qualcomm, which continued to see healthy purchases from its largest customer, Apple.

    As of July 2013, five companies will use Intel’s fabs via the Intel Custom Foundry division: Achronix, Tabula, Netronome, Microsemi, and Altera—most are FPGA makers, but Netronome designs network processors. Only Achronix began shipping chips made by Intel using the 22-nm Tri-Gate process. Several other customers also exist but were not announced at the time.

    The Alliance for Affordable Internet (A4AI) was launched in October 2013 and Intel is part of the coalition of public and private organisations that also includes Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Led by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the A4AI seeks to make Internet access more affordable so that access is broadened in the developing world, where only 31% of people are online. Google will help to decrease internet access prices so that they fall below the UN Broadband Commission’s worldwide target of 5% of monthly income.”

    *Information from Forbes.com and Wikipedia.org

    **Video published on YouTube by “Intel

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