Who is lsi corp

Japanese manufacturers had gained an early and sizeable lead over the rest of world, controlling 70 percent of the worldwide market for 64K DRAM chips--key components in computers, video games, and telecommunications systems and the most widely sought products on the market.

The few U. These manufacturers--even those with sufficient financial clout--struggled to catch up in an expensive high-technology race, especially against the Japanese, who held considerable market share and ample funding for the expensive endeavor of designing and producing memory chips.

Such was the climate pervading the semiconductor industry during the formation of LSI Logic. Despite the overwhelming odds against a small entrepreneurial company successfully competing in a market where much larger corporations were floundering, Wilfred J. Corrigan, the founder of LSI Logic, was intent on carving a niche in the industry and in defying what he later called the "conventional wisdom that the semiconductor industry was only for major corporations. No matter the strength of his idea, however, Corrigan needed money to get his venture started.

The money would need to come from investors willing to take a high-risk gamble with their dollars on the slim hope that a small company could effectively compete in the combative semiconductor industry. Much, then, would depend on Corrigan's ability to convince the financial community that his company was worth investing in, a task made even more difficult by his recent, less-than-illustrious track record as the leader of another company involved in the semiconductor industry.

The high risk of financing such a small, entrepreneurial company, combined with Corrigan's unfavorable record in the years leading up to his new venture with LSI Logic, presented investors with an opportunity they presumably would avoid.

Roughly six years prior to LSI Logic's formation, Corrigan, son of a Liverpool, England, dockworker and a graduate in chemical engineering from the Imperial College of Science, had gained control over a prominent semiconductor company, Fairchild Camera and Instrument Company. Serving as Fairchild's chairman, chief executive, and president, Corrigan led the company through an over ambitious and disastrous diversification into video games and digital watches while losing market share and falling behind in the technological race in the semiconductor business.

Against this backdrop of disappointing results, Corrigan gained the reputation as a somewhat dictatorial leader who liked to show the opening scene of the movie Patton during sales meetings.

Corrigan's troubled tenure as Fairchild's top executive ended approximately five years after it began, precipitated by Fairchild's acquisition by another company, Schlumberger Ltd. Less than a year later, Corrigan left Fairchild to embark on a short stint as a private investor, then began effecting plans to launch his own business, LSI Logic.

With LSI Logic, Corrigan planned to enter a small segment of the semiconductor industry that produced relatively small batches of semi-finished microelectronic chips, which were then customized for each customer.

As opposed to the major segment of the semiconductor industry contested by large manufacturers in Silicon Valley and in Japan, the customized chip industry produced chips that enabled its customers to differentiate their products from those of their competitors, while the major semiconductor companies manufactured standard chips in bulk.

Corrigan intended to focus on one technique in the customized chip business known as gate arrays, in which the basic logic elements, or "gates," were laid out on a chip and then connected in a particular customized order during the last stages of production.

During the early s, this field of the semiconductor industry was quite small, yet Corrigan believed the demand for customized chips, or application-specific integrated circuits ASICs , would grow immensely in the coming decade. The company was incorporated in November and began operating in early using leased facilities in Santa Clara, California. Although Corrigan held the same senior management titles at LSI Logic as he had at Fairchild, there the similarities ended.

At LSI Logic, Corrigan shed the unsavory image he had developed at Fairchild and astutely led his small company through its formative first years. In August , less than a year after beginning business, LSI Logic entered what company officials described as the "first fully cooperative semiconductor development program involving U.

The joint venture represented a connection that would grow stronger and deeper as the company sought to take the lead in a burgeoning market. To secure a commanding position in the market, however, LSI Logic needed ample funding for developmental programs intrinsic to success in a high-technology business.

Corrigan was repeatedly able to obtain the necessary capital for development, which consequently enabled LSI Logic to expand and capture market share in a field other semiconductor companies were slow to enter. A group of investment bankers in the United Kingdom and First Interstate Bank supplied the rest of the money, which was used for capital equipment purchases and plant expansion.

Despite the arrival of the needed funding, the year-end finances were disappointing. During the next few years, however, LSI Logic's profit total fell considerably short of the sales-to-profit ratio recorded in ; revenues rose vigorously throughout the decade, but profits remained comparatively low. As before, the drive to become the leader in its market required the infusion of capital, something LSI Logic needed in , , and again in In May , while LSI Logic was recording its first year of undeniable financial strength, Corrigan orchestrated his company's first public offering, which the Japanese investors readily accepted.

Japanese investors acquired a considerable portion of LSI Logic's stock, demonstrating a willingness to invest in the company. Corrigan envisioned the establishment of largely autonomous operations in three major markets: Japan, the United States, and Europe.

Corrigan referred to this blueprint for expansion as his "global triad strategy," a plan that would firmly root LSI Logic's presence in three critical regions and, according to Corrigan, insulate each autonomous division from downturns peculiar to each continent while enabling each part of the "triad" to take advantage of changing market conditions in its region.

By the beginning of , Corrigan could claim overwhelming success in one market of his global triad strategy, when LSI Logic ranked as the number one company in the U.

LSI Logic controlled 40 percent of the market by this time and its sales volume reflected its quick rise in the industry. In comparison to other U. To actualize his global triad strategy and help invigorate lagging profits, Corrigan moved resolutely toward the eye of storm, increasing LSI Logic's presence where the most powerful semiconductor companies existed--in Japan.

In , LSI Logic extended its joint development program through a multi-year agreement with Toshiba. ASIC market and 25 percent of the worldwide market.

Although the company had secured an enviable position in the customized chip market, the increasing growth of the industry's sales volume had drawn numerous competitors attracted by the enormous growth potential in the business. By the mids, LSI Logic was competing in a crowded field and one that, as the decade progressed, became increasingly unprofitable.

Much attention had been paid to revenue growth in the customized chip market, but little could be said of parallel profit growth, a phenomenon borne out in the annual revenue and net income totals recorded by LSI Logic, an industry leader. LSI Logic could claim enviable victories in revenue growth, market share, and consistent advancement in technological sophistication, but these victories came with a price: alarmingly low profits. Significant changes were needed to lift LSI Logic's profitability, but the company's transformation was costly, leading to another year of what industry pundits termed LSI Logic's "profitless prosperity.

In , the company instituted sweeping cost-cutting measures to reduce overhead expenses and to embark on a new path toward increased profitability.

Employment was trimmed by 1,, falling to 4,; a test and assembly plant in Braunschweig, Germany, was closed; and several operations deemed inconsistent with the company's new future were eliminated. The changes effected in sought to propel the company back into the black and end its near decade-long inability to produce profits commensurate with its leading position in the customized chip market. Reducing overhead was not sufficient by itself to eliminate LSI Logic's problems.

This program offered customers access to a library of system-level building blocks and design tools. The company had always distinguished itself with its ability to provide a high level of customer service through computer software and other means, one of the chief reasons Corrigan believed back in that a small company could fare better in the customized chip market than a large company.

CoreWare represented a significant leap in LSI Logic's ability to provide responsive service and, perhaps most importantly, CoreWare represented a sophisticated service that would yield higher profit margins, something the company desperately needed. With the changes implemented in , including its centerpiece CoreWare program, LSI Logic moved forward, invigorated and redirected toward a more positive future.

By the end of the company's first fiscal quarter in , it had recorded increases in its revenues for ten consecutive quarters. The company had also recorded consecutive quarterly improvements in its net income total during the same time span, a feat without rival in the company's history.

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