Rochester Electronics, LLC is a privately owned American technology company headquartered in

Newburyport, MA Newburyport is a coastal city in Essex County, Massachusetts, United States, northeast of Boston. The population was 18,289 at the 2020 census. A historic seaport with vibrant tourism industry, Newburyport includes part of Plum Island. The mo ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

that manufactures and globally distributes semiconductors that are either obsolete or nearing the end of their

product lifecycle In industry, Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) is the process of managing the entire lifecycle of a product from its inception through the engineering, design and manufacture, as well as the service and disposal of manufactured products. PL ...

. The company is authorized by over 70 semiconductor manufacturers and is licensed to manufacture and distribute semiconductors that are no longer produced by the original manufacturer.

History

Rochester Electronics was founded in 1981 by Curt Gerrish. Gerrish started his career at

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent public companies, Motorol ...

where he remained for two decades. It was at

that he learned of the challenge major corporations and government agencies face when a

semiconductor A semiconductor is a material which has an electrical conductivity value falling between that of a conductor, such as copper, and an insulator, such as glass. Its resistivity falls as its temperature rises; metals behave in the opposite way. ...

nears the end of its

. Gerrish found that a semiconductor's product lifecycle is much shorter than that of the product in which it is placed. Realizing there was a need for the distribution of end-of-life

products when no longer supported by the original manufacturer, he left his position at

and started Rochester Electronics. In March 1998, Rochester Electronics signed a Discontinued Parts Agreement with Cypress Semiconductor Corp (acquired by

Infineon Technologies Infineon Technologies AG is a German semiconductor manufacturer founded in 1999, when the semiconductor operations of the former parent company Siemens AG were spun off. Infineon has about 50,280 employees and is one of the ten largest semicon ...

), which gave Rochester rights to distribute discontinued Cypress products.

Digi-Key Digi-Key is a privately held American company that distributes electronic components. Headquartered in Thief River Falls in the U.S. state of Minnesota, the company is the fourth largest electronic component distributor in North America and the ...

, an electronic components distributor, and Rochester Electronics partnered in 2021 to continue the supply of critical and authentic components despite the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identi ...

, supply chain uncertainties, and the rise of counterfeit components. In June 2021, the company joined the Digi-Key Marketplace to continue the supply chain for Digi-Key customers. The company signed a collaboration agreement with STMicroelectronics in September 2021 for the purpose of enhancing and providing a broader range “of both active and end-of-life stocked products.” In March 2022, Rochester Electronics partnered wit
Kyoto Semiconductor
an optical device manufacturer. This agreement allowed for Rochester customers to receive Kyoto Semiconductor optical device solutions.

Licensed manufacturing

Rochester Electronics owns more than 12 billion silicon die which are stored in nitrogen-purged dry boxes, and billions more finished devices warehoused in temperature and humidity-controlled facilities, giving them the capability to manufacture over 70,000 device types. In addition to distributing discontinued

s, they assemble and test products as a

semiconductor manufacturer The semiconductor industry is the aggregate of companies engaged in the design and fabrication of semiconductors and semiconductor devices, such as transistors and integrated circuits. It formed around 1960, once the fabrication of semiconduc ...

licensed under the original manufacturer. They also have the ability to replicate parts that no longer have available silicon or design documents. These methods and abilities, for example, can help extend the life of components such as those in medical devices.

Locations

* Headquartered in Newburyport, Massachusetts,

* Design and technology centers located in Rockville, Maryland and

Burnsville, Minnesota Burnsville () is a city south of downtown Minneapolis in Dakota County, Minnesota. The city lies on a bluff overlooking the south bank of the Minnesota River upstream from its confluence with the Mississippi River. Burnsville and nearby subu ...

* Regional headquarters in

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, bor ...

;

Tokyo, Japan Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

; and Cambridgeshire, United Kingdom * Sales offices in

Munich, Germany Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the States of Germany, German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the List of cities in Germany by popu ...

;

Shanghai, China Shanghai (; , , Standard Mandarin pronunciation: ) is one of the four direct-administered municipalities of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The city is located on the southern estuary of the Yangtze River, with the Huangpu River flowin ...

; and

Chandler, Arizona Chandler is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, United States, and a suburb in the Phoenix-Mesa-Chandler Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA). It is bordered to the north and west by Tempe, to the north by Mesa, to the west by Phoenix, to the ...

Semiconductor anti-counterfeit awareness

Since semiconductors are engineered within an incalculable number of critical systems and products such as airplanes, trains, lifesaving health equipment, etc. a failure of one has the potential to pose considerable risk to the health and safety of people around the globe. There have bee
several documented incidents of counterfeit semiconductors causing and/or potentially causing serious health and safety issues
In 2006, Rochester Electronics initiated the formation of the

Semiconductor Industry Association The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) is a trade association and lobbying group founded in 1977 that represents the United States semiconductor industry. It is located in Washington, D.C. One of the main achievements of the SIA was the c ...

's [SIA
Anti-Counterfeiting Task Force
(ACTF). They remain an active participant promoting best procurement practices and the importance of avoiding counterfeit and substandard semiconductors.

References

{{Reflist Semiconductor companies of the United States Companies based in Newburyport, Massachusetts American companies established in 1981 Manufacturing companies based in Massachusetts Assembly and Test semiconductor companies