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Cirrus Logic Inc. is an American fabless semiconductor supplier that specializes in analog, mixed-signal, and audio DSP integrated circuits (ICs). Since 1998, the company's headquarters have been in
Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of Texas, as well as the seat and largest city of Travis County, with portions extending into Hays and Williamson counties. Incorporated on December 27, 1839, it is the 11th-most-populous city ...
. The company's audio processors and audio converters feature in audio and consumer entertainment products, including smartphones, tablets, digital headsets, automotive entertainment systems, home-theater receivers, and smart home applications, such as smart speakers. The company has over 3,200 customers including Ford, Harman International, Itron, LG, Lenovo, Onkyo, Marantz, Motorola, Panasonic, Pioneer, Samsung, SiriusXM, Sony, Apple, and Vizio.
Suhas Patil Suhas S. Patil (born 1944) is an Indian-American entrepreneur, academic, and venture capitalist. He founded Cirrus Logic, a fabless semiconductor company. Patil's work has covered computer architecture, parallel processing computers, very-la ...
founded the company as "Patil Systems, Inc." in
Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...
in 1981; it adopted the name "Cirrus Logic" when it moved to
Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo Cou ...
in 1984. Cirrus Logic has more than 3,900 patents issued and pending.


History

Patil Systems, Inc., was founded in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1981 by
Suhas Patil Suhas S. Patil (born 1944) is an Indian-American entrepreneur, academic, and venture capitalist. He founded Cirrus Logic, a fabless semiconductor company. Patil's work has covered computer architecture, parallel processing computers, very-la ...
, and in 1983 the company was reorganized by Patil,
Kamran Elahian Kamran Elahian ( fa, کامران الهیان) is an Iranian-American entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond ...
, and venture capitalist Fred Nazem, whose firm, Nazem and Company provided the company's first/start-up round of financing. Later the company was renamed as Cirrus Logic when it moved to Silicon Valley in 1984 to focus on solutions for the growing PC components market. Michael Hackworth was named president and chief executive officer in January 1985, and served as CEO until February 1999. It joined the Nasdaq market listing in 1989 (symbol: CRUS). Cirrus Logic acquired Crystal Semiconductor, a supplier of analog and mixed-signal converter ICs, in 1991. In the early 1990s, Cirrus Logic became a supplier of PC graphics chips, audio converters and chips for magnetic storage products. David D. French joined Cirrus Logic, Inc. as president and chief operating officer in June 1998 and was named chief executive officer in February 1999. Soon after joining the company, through an acquisition strategy French repositioned the company into a premier supplier of high-performance analog and digital processing chip solutions for consumer entertainment electronics, and soon afterwards, M. Yousuf Palla joined as Vice President of Operations and Manufacturing, contributing further to its success. The company announced in April 2000 that it had completed moving its headquarters to Austin, Texas. In June 2005, Cirrus Logic sold its video products operation to an investment firm, creating privately owned
Magnum Semiconductor Magnum Semiconductor Inc. was a video compression technology company headquartered in Milpitas, California, and with an engineering branch at Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It traded under the Magnum Semiconductor name between its foundation in 2 ...
. After French resigned in March 2007, Jason Rhode, formerly the vice president and general manager of Cirrus Logic's Mixed Signal Audio Division, was named president and CEO in May 2007. In 2014 Cirrus Logic bought
Wolfson Microelectronics Wolfson Microelectronics plc was a microelectronics and fabless semiconductor company headquartered in Edinburgh, Scotland. It specialised in signal processing and mixed-signal chips for the consumer electronics market and had engineering an ...
for approximately $467 million.


Timeline of key events

* 1981 – Patil Systems Inc. is founded in Salt Lake City by Dr. Suhas Patil. Company focuses on IC solutions for the growing PC components market. * 1984 – Patil Systems Inc. renamed Cirrus Logic and moves headquarters to Silicon Valley. * 1989 – Company goes public and is listed on the Nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol CRUS. * 1991 – Cirrus Logic acquires Crystal Semiconductor, a supplier of analog and mixed-signal converter ICs. * 1992 – Cirrus Logic Completes Deal for Acumos Inc. * 1998 – Cirrus Logic exits from the PC graphics card business. * 1998 – David D. French joins company as president and chief operating officer in June and becomes chief executive officer in February 1999. In the fall, company spins out its communication business unit. * 2000 – Cirrus Logic moves its headquarters to Austin, Texas. * 2001 – Cirrus Logic announces plan to begin exit from magnetic storage chip business. * 2001 – Cirrus Logic acquires several start-up companies with technologies in video decoding, video encoding, wireless networking, and networked digital audio. * 2003 – Cirrus Logic closes wireless networking operations. * 2005 – Cirrus Logic sells video product assets to investment firm, creating
Magnum Semiconductor Magnum Semiconductor Inc. was a video compression technology company headquartered in Milpitas, California, and with an engineering branch at Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. It traded under the Magnum Semiconductor name between its foundation in 2 ...
(company maintains minority equity position). * 2007 – Jason Rhode, formerly vice president and general manager of Cirrus' Mixed-Signal Audio division, is named president and chief executive officer, replacing French who resigned in March. In July, Cirrus Logic acquires Apex Microtechnology, a provider of high-power products for industrial and aerospace markets. Cirrus Logic acquires audio chip company
Tripath Class T was a registered trademark for a switching (class-D) audio amplifier, used for Tripath's amplifier technologies (patent filed on Jun 20, 1996). Similar designs have now been widely adopted by different manufacturers. Amplifier The cover ...
after they went bankrupt. * 2012 – Company sells its hybrid product line in Tucson, Ariz., to a group of investors, creating Apex Microtechnology as a stand-alone company once again. In November, the company announces that it is moving its remaining product line team in Tucson to its Austin headquarters. * 2014 – Cirrus Logic acquires UK-based Wolfson Microelectronics, an audio IC company founded in 1984. * 2021 – Jason Rhode steps down as CEO to be replaced by John Forsyth who was previously chief strategy officer.


Graphics history

In the early 1990s, Cirrus Logic was a supplier of low-cost PC graphics chips. Cirrus's
Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...
2D GUI accelerators (
GDI GDI may refer to: Science and technology * Gasoline direct injection, a type of fuel injection * Graphics Device Interface, a component of Microsoft Windows * Guanosine nucleotide dissociation inhibitor, a protein Organisations * Gabriel Dumont I ...
) were among the fastest in the low-end market-segment, outperforming competing VGA chips from
Oak Technologies Oak Technology was an American supplier of semiconductor chips for sound cards, graphics cards and optical storage devices such as CD-ROM, CD-RW and DVD. It achieved success with optical storage chips and its stock price increased substantially ...
,
Trident Microsystems Trident Microsystems was a fabless semiconductor company that in the 1990s, it became a well-known supplier of integrated circuits (commonly called "chips") for video display controllers used in video cards and on motherboards for desktop PCs ...
, and Paradise (
Western Digital Western Digital Corporation (WDC, commonly known as Western Digital or WD) is an American computer drive manufacturer and data storage company, headquartered in San Jose, California. It designs, manufactures and sells data technology produ ...
). For example, the Cirrus GD5422 (1992) supported hardware acceleration for both
8-bit color 8-bit color graphics are a method of storing image information in a computer's memory or in an image file, so that each pixel is represented by 8 bits (1 byte). The maximum number of colors that can be displayed at any one time is 256 or 28. Color ...
and
16-bit color High color graphics is a method of storing image information in a computer's memory such that each pixel is represented by two bytes. Usually the color is represented by all 16 bits, but some devices also support 15-bit high color. More recentl ...
. It was one of the lowest-priced SVGA controllers to support both. By the mid-1990s, when PCs had migrated to the PCI bus, Cirrus had fallen behind S3 and Trident Microsystems. When the announced release date of the GD5470 "Mondello" came and went, Cirrus's reputation in desktop PC-graphics suffered. Mondello development took a back seat to the GD5464 which was near completion and proved to be a much faster design with the use of
Rambus Rambus Incorporated, founded in 1990, is an American technology company that designs, develops and licenses chip interface technologies and architectures that are used in digital electronics products. The company is well known for inventing ...
. (Because of this Mondello never got off the ground.) The company's final graphics chips, the GD546x "Laguna" series of PCI/AGP 3D-accelerators, were novel in that they were one of the few video cards to use Rambus
RDRAM Rambus DRAM (RDRAM), and its successors Concurrent Rambus DRAM (CRDRAM) and Direct Rambus DRAM (DRDRAM), are types of synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) developed by Rambus from the 1990s through to the early 2000s. The third-generati ...
. The patented use of tiled memory by the GD546x chips is still used by nearly all graphics processors today. However, like many other 2D and 3D chips at the time were gate limited by the process technology available at the time, the feature set of perspective-correct
texture mapping Texture mapping is a method for mapping a texture on a computer-generated graphic. Texture here can be high frequency detail, surface texture, or color. History The original technique was pioneered by Edwin Catmull in 1974. Texture mappi ...
,
bilinear filtering In mathematics, bilinear interpolation is a method for interpolating functions of two variables (e.g., ''x'' and ''y'') using repeated linear interpolation. It is usually applied to functions sampled on a 2D rectilinear grid, though it can be ...
, single-pass
lighting Lighting or illumination is the deliberate use of light to achieve practical or aesthetic effects. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources like lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing dayl ...
,
gouraud shading Gouraud shading, named after Henri Gouraud, is an interpolation method used in computer graphics to produce continuous shading of surfaces represented by polygon meshes. In practice, Gouraud shading is most often used to achieve continuous li ...
, and
alpha blending In computer graphics, alpha compositing or alpha blending is the process of combining one image with a background to create the appearance of partial or full transparency. It is often useful to render picture elements (pixels) in separate pas ...
, was incomplete compared to the next generation of 3D chips. The GD546x family was limited by CPU processing at the time, CPUs could not feed it enough triangles which was the real performance block. The raw processing power of the GD546x was nearly 2.5 million 25 pixel triangles per second, much faster than competitors. When Intel announced they were entering the 3D market with the i740, Cirrus Logic exited the market, which at the time for Cirrus Logic was worth 500 million dollars annually. (Intel didn't catch up in performance for many years, the i740 was not widely accepted and did not win any major designs). Cirrus Logic graphic cards are used in emulators. Both
QEMU QEMU is a free and open-source emulator (Quick EMUlator). It emulates the machine's central processing unit, processor through dynamic binary translation and provides a set of different hardware and device models for the machine, enabling it t ...
and
Bochs Bochs (pronounced "box") is a portable IA-32 and x86-64 IBM PC compatible emulator and debugger mostly written in C++ and distributed as free software under the GNU Lesser General Public License. It supports emulation of the processor(s) (inc ...
emulate the Cirrus CLGD 5446 PCI VGA-card, with Bochs additionally emulating the CL-GD5430 ISA card.


Graphics chipsets


Desktop

* CL-GD410 + CL-GD420 –
ISA Isa or ISA may refer to: Places * Isa, Amur Oblast, Russia * Isa, Kagoshima, Japan * Isa, Nigeria * Isa District, Kagoshima, former district in Japan * Isa Town, middle class town located in Bahrain * Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia * Mount ...
SVGA Super VGA (SVGA) is a broad term that covers a wide range of computer display standards that extended IBM's VGA specification. When used as shorthand for a resolution, as VGA and XGA often are, SVGA refers to a resolution of 800×600. History I ...
chipset, Video 7 VEGA VGA (1987) * CL-GD510 + CL-GD520 – ISA SVGA "Eagle II" chipset; known for 100% CGA emulation (1988) * CL-GD5320 – ISA SVGA chipset (1990) * CL-GD5401 – ISA SVGA chipset, also known as Acumos VGA (AVGA1) * CL-GD5402 – ISA SVGA chipset, also known as Acumos VGA (AVGA2) * CL-GD5410 – ISA SVGA chipset, low-to-mid-end DRAM-based cards (accelerated), some laptop chipsets. Known for integrating graphics card components into one chip (built-in RAMDAC and clock generators) at an early point. (1991) * CL-GD5420 – ISA SVGA chipset; highly integrated (15 bit
RAMDAC A random-access memory digital-to-analog converter (RAMDAC) is a combination of three fast digital-to-analog converters (DACs) with a small static random-access memory (SRAM) used in computer graphics display controllers or video cards to store th ...
+ PLL), 1 MB * CL-GD5421 – ISA SVGA chipset; highly integrated (15/16 bit RAMDAC + PLL), 1 MB * CL-GD5422 – Enhanced version of the CL-GD5420 (
32-bit In computer architecture, 32-bit computing refers to computer systems with a processor, memory, and other major system components that operate on data in 32- bit units. Compared to smaller bit widths, 32-bit computers can perform large calculati ...
internal memory interface, 15/16/24 bit RAMDAC. An ISA video card carrying this chipset offered 1280×1024 interlaced max resolution. * CL-GD5424 – VLB version of the CL-GD5422, but resembles the CL-GD5426 in some respects * CL-GD5425 – True color VGA controller with TV out * CL-GD5426 – Hardware BitBLT engine; ISA bus and VLB up to 2 MB of memory * CL-GD5428 – Enhanced version of the CL-GD5426; faster BITBLT engine * CL-GD5429 – Enhanced version of the CL-GD5428; supports higher memory clock and has memory-mapped I/O * CL-GD5430 – Similar to CL-GD5429, but with CL-GD543x core (32-bit host interface) * CL-GD5434 – PCI Alpine family chip with
64-bit In computer architecture, 64-bit integers, memory addresses, or other data units are those that are 64 bits wide. Also, 64-bit CPUs and ALUs are those that are based on processor registers, address buses, or data buses of that size. A ...
internal memory interface; only supports 64-
bit The bit is the most basic unit of information in computing and digital communications. The name is a portmanteau of binary digit. The bit represents a logical state with one of two possible values. These values are most commonly represente ...
mode if equipped with 2 MB of video memory; commonly equipped with 1 MB, extendable to 2 MB (1994) * CL-GD5436 – An optimized CL-GD5434 * CL-GD5440 – CL-GD5430 with motion-video acceleration (CL-GD54M40 has integrated filters) * CL-GD5446 – 64-bit Alpine ''VisualMedia'' accelerator, 2D-only; adds motion-video acceleration to the CL-GD5436 * CL-GD546X – The Laguna VisualMedia family of 2D, 3D, and video accelerators. '64 and '65 include 3D acceleration (PCI, AGP). These chips use a single channel of
RDRAM Rambus DRAM (RDRAM), and its successors Concurrent Rambus DRAM (CRDRAM) and Direct Rambus DRAM (DRDRAM), are types of synchronous dynamic random-access memory (SDRAM) developed by Rambus from the 1990s through to the early 2000s. The third-generati ...
memory, providing up to 600 MB/s bandwidth. The '62 lacks 3D acceleration. All include a BitBLT engine, video windows, and 64×64 hardware cursor. * CL-GD5480 – 64-bit Alpine accelerator with 100 MHz SGRAM


Mobile

* CL-GD610 + 620 (1989) * CL-GD6420/6440 – Used in some laptops; similar to older Cirrus chipsets (5410/AVGA2) * CL-GD6205/6215/6225/6235 – Compatible with the CL-GD5420 * CL-GD7541/7542/7543/7548 – Compatible with the CL-GD5428/3x


See also

*
Graphics card A graphics card (also called a video card, display card, graphics adapter, VGA card/VGA, video adapter, display adapter, or mistakenly GPU) is an expansion card which generates a feed of output images to a display device, such as a computer mo ...
*
Graphics processing unit A graphics processing unit (GPU) is a specialized electronic circuit designed to manipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in a frame buffer intended for output to a display device. GPUs are used in embedded systems, m ...


References


External links

* {{Authority control Fabless semiconductor companies Graphics hardware companies American companies established in 1981 Electronics companies established in 1981 1981 establishments in Utah Manufacturing companies based in Austin, Texas Companies listed on the Nasdaq Semiconductor companies of the United States American brands