TriQuint Semiconductor
Encyclopedia
TriQuint Semiconductor is a semiconductor company that designs, manufactures, and supplies high-performance RF modules, components and foundry services. TriQuint primarily works with the semiconductor
gallium arsenide, or GaAs
, and is the number-three worldwide leader in GaAs devices and the world’s largest commercial GaAs foundry. The company was founded in 1985 in Beaverton, Oregon
, and is now headquartered in Hillsboro, Oregon
, with other locations in San Jose, California
, Chelmsford, Massachusetts
, Boulder, Colorado
, Richardson, Texas
, High Point, North Carolina
, Apopka, Florida
, Munich, Germany, Heredia, Costa Rica
, and in other places around the world.
of Tektronix
. In 1985 the founders held a contest to come up with a name for the company. The winning entry paid homage to the gallium arsenide on which the company was founded. *Tri
, from the Greek for “a prefix meaning three, thrice, threefold”, and quint
, from the Latin for “a set or sequence of five” literally means 3-5. 3-5 refers to the location of the elements gallium
and arsenic
on the periodic table
. The elements on the third and fifth columns of the periodic table, including nitrogen found in GaN
, are known to have special conductive properties, great for producing compound semiconductors. Alan Patz was the first chief executive officer
(CEO) of the company, serving from 1985 until 1991.
In 1988, the core group working in the spin-off had to decide if they wanted to continue to work under Tektronix as the GaAs
SBU
or if they wanted to venture out on their own. This core group met in a hotel room at the Greenwood Inn in Beaverton, Oregon, and decided that they were going to use their experience to start the company that would eventually become TriQuint.
In 1991, Gazelle Microcircuits, Gigabit Logic, and TriQuint all merged under the TriQuint name. The focus of the merged company was to produce components for mobile phones and other communication devices. On May 15, 2001, TriQuint and Sawtek Inc. announced that the two companies would merge. Sawtek made products based on surface acoustic wave
, and with the merger, TriQuint was able to incorporate their technology into its products. Patz left the CEO position in 1991 and Bert Moyer took over in May as the interim CEO, serving until September when Steve Sharp became the permanent leader of the company.
In 2002, TriQuint acquired Infineon's GaAs
semiconductor business as a part of a partnership between the two companies to create products together, followed in late 2002, with the acquisition of a large portion of Agere Systems' optoelectronics business. Also in 2002, Steve Sharp stepped down as CEO and Ralph Quinsey took over the position. TriQuint later sold the TriQuint Optoelectronics Business Unit created from this acquisition to CyOptics in 2005.
In early 2005, TriQuint acquired TFR Technologies, located in Bend, Oregon
. TriQuint acquired the company to incorporate their work on bulk acoustic wave (BAW) products into their own work. On September 4, 2007, TriQuint completed the purchase of Peak Devices Inc. in order to incorporate their work on wide band bandwidth into its products. This was followed by the acquisition of WJ Communications, Inc. completed on May 23, 2008, in order to acquire their RF products.
The company settled an investor lawsuit in 2009 over allegations of improper backdating of stock options
. TriQuint agreed to pay nearly $3 million in plaintiff's attorneys fees to settle the case, but maintained the company did nothing wrong. For fiscal year 2010, the company's revenues had grown to $878.7 million, with about 25 percent of revenues coming from Apple Computer
's contract manufacturer Foxconn
.
TriQuint Semiconductor creates standard and custom products using gallium arsenide, surface acoustic wave
(SAW) and bulk acoustic wave (BAW) technologies. These processes are built to be used in many different devices. In wireless
handsets, TriQuint creates many components, including power amplifiers (PA), power amplifier
modules
(PAM), pHEMT switches, SAW
and BAW filters
, filter
modules, antenna switch modules (ASMs) and front-end modules (FEMs). Their chips have been used in the manufacture of Apple's iPhone
and iPad
, Palm's Pre
, HTC's Android G1, and Amazon's Kindle reader
, among other consumer products.
TriQuint's GaAs
and SAW
technology is used inside many base stations. For broadband
communications devices, TriQuint creates and produces optical modulator drivers, transimpedance amplifiers (TIA), attenuator
s, Bessel filter
s, and low-noise amplifier
s (LNA). TriQuint's products are also used by the military.
TriQuint also offers foundry services, allowing TriQuint to manufacture its own products. Additionally, the company allows fabless semiconductor companies
to use its facilities for manufacturing.
Semiconductor
A semiconductor is a material with electrical conductivity due to electron flow intermediate in magnitude between that of a conductor and an insulator. This means a conductivity roughly in the range of 103 to 10−8 siemens per centimeter...
gallium arsenide, or GaAs
Gaas
Gaas is a commune in the Landes department in Aquitaine in south-western France....
, and is the number-three worldwide leader in GaAs devices and the world’s largest commercial GaAs foundry. The company was founded in 1985 in Beaverton, Oregon
Beaverton, Oregon
Beaverton is a city in Washington County, Oregon, United States, seven miles west of Portland in the Tualatin River Valley.As of the 2010 census, the population is 90,267. This makes it the second-largest city in the county and Oregon's sixth-largest city...
, and is now headquartered in Hillsboro, Oregon
Hillsboro, Oregon
Hillsboro is the fifth-largest city in the U.S. state of Oregon and is the county seat of Washington County. Lying in the Tualatin Valley on the west side of the Portland metropolitan area, the city is home to many high-technology companies, such as Intel, that compose what has become known as the...
, with other locations in San Jose, California
San Jose, California
San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay...
, Chelmsford, Massachusetts
Chelmsford, Massachusetts
Chelmsford is a suburban town in Middlesex County, Massachusetts in the Greater Boston area. As of the 2010 United States Census, the town's population was 33,802. The Census Bureau's 2008 population estimate for the town was 34,409, ranking it 14th in population among the 54 municipalities in...
, Boulder, Colorado
Boulder, Colorado
Boulder is the county seat and most populous city of Boulder County and the 11th most populous city in the U.S. state of Colorado. Boulder is located at the base of the foothills of the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of...
, Richardson, Texas
Richardson, Texas
Richardson is a city in Dallas and Collin Counties in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 99,223. In 2011 the population was estimated to be 107,684. Richardson is an affluent inner suburb of Dallas and home of the Telecom Corridor with a high...
, High Point, North Carolina
High Point, North Carolina
High Point is a city located in the Piedmont Triad region of North Carolina. As of 2010 the city had a total population of 104,371, according to the US Census Bureau. High Point is currently the eighth-largest municipality in North Carolina....
, Apopka, Florida
Apopka, Florida
Apopka is a city located in Orange County, Florida, United States. The population was 26,969 at the 2000 census. According to the U.S Census estimates of 2006, the city grew to 53,563. It is part of the Orlando–Kissimmee Metropolitan Statistical Area. Apopka is an Indian word for “Potato...
, Munich, Germany, Heredia, Costa Rica
Heredia, Costa Rica
Heredia is a city located in the Heredia province of Costa Rica and is the capital of that province. It is currently undergoing a rapid process of industrialization and is located 10 kilometers north of the country's capital, San José....
, and in other places around the world.
History
TriQuint Semiconductor began its life in the mid-1980s as a subsidiarySubsidiary
A subsidiary company, subsidiary, or daughter company is a company that is completely or partly owned and wholly controlled by another company that owns more than half of the subsidiary's stock. The subsidiary can be a company, corporation, or limited liability company. In some cases it is a...
of Tektronix
Tektronix
Tektronix, Inc. is an American company best known for its test and measurement equipment such as oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, and video and mobile test protocol equipment. In November 2007, Tektronix became a subsidiary of Danaher Corporation....
. In 1985 the founders held a contest to come up with a name for the company. The winning entry paid homage to the gallium arsenide on which the company was founded. *Tri
Tri
Tri may refer to:* An intern specializing in Float and Share research.* tri-, a numerical prefix meaning three* El Tri or El Tricolor, are the nickname of the Mexico national football team.* El Tri, Mexican rock group...
, from the Greek for “a prefix meaning three, thrice, threefold”, and quint
Quint
Quint may refer to:In literature:* Quintinius Verginix, a character from The Edge Chronicles book series* Quint, a shipmaker in the series of novels Spider Riders*quint magazine, a Dubai based arts & culture magazine...
, from the Latin for “a set or sequence of five” literally means 3-5. 3-5 refers to the location of the elements gallium
Gallium
Gallium is a chemical element that has the symbol Ga and atomic number 31. Elemental gallium does not occur in nature, but as the gallium salt in trace amounts in bauxite and zinc ores. A soft silvery metallic poor metal, elemental gallium is a brittle solid at low temperatures. As it liquefies...
and arsenic
Arsenic
Arsenic is a chemical element with the symbol As, atomic number 33 and relative atomic mass 74.92. Arsenic occurs in many minerals, usually in conjunction with sulfur and metals, and also as a pure elemental crystal. It was first documented by Albertus Magnus in 1250.Arsenic is a metalloid...
on the periodic table
Periodic table
The periodic table of the chemical elements is a tabular display of the 118 known chemical elements organized by selected properties of their atomic structures. Elements are presented by increasing atomic number, the number of protons in an atom's atomic nucleus...
. The elements on the third and fifth columns of the periodic table, including nitrogen found in GaN
Gan
Gan may refer to:-Computing and telecommunications:*.gan, the file extension for documents created by GanttProject*Generic Access Network formerly known as Unlicensed Mobile Access *Global Area Network- Mythology :...
, are known to have special conductive properties, great for producing compound semiconductors. Alan Patz was the first chief executive officer
Chief executive officer
A chief executive officer , managing director , Executive Director for non-profit organizations, or chief executive is the highest-ranking corporate officer or administrator in charge of total management of an organization...
(CEO) of the company, serving from 1985 until 1991.
In 1988, the core group working in the spin-off had to decide if they wanted to continue to work under Tektronix as the GaAs
Gaas
Gaas is a commune in the Landes department in Aquitaine in south-western France....
SBU
SBU
The three-letter acronym SBU may refer to:Military and defense* Security Service of Ukraine or Sluzhba Bezpeky Ukrayiny .* Sensitive but unclassified, a U.S. designation of information* SBU Corsair, an aircraft* Special Boarding UnitUniversities...
or if they wanted to venture out on their own. This core group met in a hotel room at the Greenwood Inn in Beaverton, Oregon, and decided that they were going to use their experience to start the company that would eventually become TriQuint.
In 1991, Gazelle Microcircuits, Gigabit Logic, and TriQuint all merged under the TriQuint name. The focus of the merged company was to produce components for mobile phones and other communication devices. On May 15, 2001, TriQuint and Sawtek Inc. announced that the two companies would merge. Sawtek made products based on surface acoustic wave
Surface acoustic wave
]A surface acoustic wave is an acoustic wave traveling along the surface of a material exhibiting elasticity, with an amplitude that typically decays exponentially with depth into the substrate.-Discovery:...
, and with the merger, TriQuint was able to incorporate their technology into its products. Patz left the CEO position in 1991 and Bert Moyer took over in May as the interim CEO, serving until September when Steve Sharp became the permanent leader of the company.
In 2002, TriQuint acquired Infineon's GaAs
Gaas
Gaas is a commune in the Landes department in Aquitaine in south-western France....
semiconductor business as a part of a partnership between the two companies to create products together, followed in late 2002, with the acquisition of a large portion of Agere Systems' optoelectronics business. Also in 2002, Steve Sharp stepped down as CEO and Ralph Quinsey took over the position. TriQuint later sold the TriQuint Optoelectronics Business Unit created from this acquisition to CyOptics in 2005.
In early 2005, TriQuint acquired TFR Technologies, located in Bend, Oregon
Bend, Oregon
Bend is a city in and the county seat of Deschutes County, Oregon, United States, and the principal city of the Bend, Oregon Metropolitan Statistical Area. Bend is Central Oregon's largest city, and, despite its modest size, is the de facto metropolis of the region, owing to the low population...
. TriQuint acquired the company to incorporate their work on bulk acoustic wave (BAW) products into their own work. On September 4, 2007, TriQuint completed the purchase of Peak Devices Inc. in order to incorporate their work on wide band bandwidth into its products. This was followed by the acquisition of WJ Communications, Inc. completed on May 23, 2008, in order to acquire their RF products.
The company settled an investor lawsuit in 2009 over allegations of improper backdating of stock options
Options backdating
Options backdating is the practice of issuing options contracts on a later date than that which the options have listed. While options backdating is not, in and of itself, an illegal practice, intentional backdating that coincides with low underlying stock prices and accounting reports that claim...
. TriQuint agreed to pay nearly $3 million in plaintiff's attorneys fees to settle the case, but maintained the company did nothing wrong. For fiscal year 2010, the company's revenues had grown to $878.7 million, with about 25 percent of revenues coming from Apple Computer
Apple Computer
Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation that designs and markets consumer electronics, computer software, and personal computers. The company's best-known hardware products include the Macintosh line of computers, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad...
's contract manufacturer Foxconn
Foxconn
The Foxconn Technology Group is a multinational business group anchored by the Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., Ltd. , a Taiwan-registered corporation headquartered in Tucheng, Taiwan...
.
Products
Surface acoustic wave
]A surface acoustic wave is an acoustic wave traveling along the surface of a material exhibiting elasticity, with an amplitude that typically decays exponentially with depth into the substrate.-Discovery:...
(SAW) and bulk acoustic wave (BAW) technologies. These processes are built to be used in many different devices. In wireless
Wireless
Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...
handsets, TriQuint creates many components, including power amplifiers (PA), power amplifier
Amplifier
Generally, an amplifier or simply amp, is a device for increasing the power of a signal.In popular use, the term usually describes an electronic amplifier, in which the input "signal" is usually a voltage or a current. In audio applications, amplifiers drive the loudspeakers used in PA systems to...
modules
Modular design
Modular design, or "modularity in design" is an approach that subdivides a system into smaller parts that can be independently created and then used in different systems to drive multiple functionalities...
(PAM), pHEMT switches, SAW
Surface acoustic wave
]A surface acoustic wave is an acoustic wave traveling along the surface of a material exhibiting elasticity, with an amplitude that typically decays exponentially with depth into the substrate.-Discovery:...
and BAW filters
Electronic filter
Electronic filters are electronic circuits which perform signal processing functions, specifically to remove unwanted frequency components from the signal, to enhance wanted ones, or both...
, filter
Electronic filter
Electronic filters are electronic circuits which perform signal processing functions, specifically to remove unwanted frequency components from the signal, to enhance wanted ones, or both...
modules, antenna switch modules (ASMs) and front-end modules (FEMs). Their chips have been used in the manufacture of Apple's iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
and iPad
IPad
The iPad is a line of tablet computers designed, developed and marketed by Apple Inc., primarily as a platform for audio-visual media including books, periodicals, movies, music, games, and web content. The iPad was introduced on January 27, 2010 by Apple's then-CEO Steve Jobs. Its size and...
, Palm's Pre
Palm Pre
The Palm Pre is a multimedia smartphone designed and marketed by Palm with a multi-touch screen and a sliding keyboard. The smartphone was the first to use Palm's Linux based mobile operating system, webOS...
, HTC's Android G1, and Amazon's Kindle reader
Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com subsidiary Lab126 which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media...
, among other consumer products.
TriQuint's GaAs
Gaas
Gaas is a commune in the Landes department in Aquitaine in south-western France....
and SAW
Surface acoustic wave
]A surface acoustic wave is an acoustic wave traveling along the surface of a material exhibiting elasticity, with an amplitude that typically decays exponentially with depth into the substrate.-Discovery:...
technology is used inside many base stations. For broadband
Broadband
The term broadband refers to a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device . Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times...
communications devices, TriQuint creates and produces optical modulator drivers, transimpedance amplifiers (TIA), attenuator
Attenuator (electronics)
An attenuator is an electronic device that reduces the amplitude or power of a signal without appreciably distorting its waveform.An attenuator is effectively the opposite of an amplifier, though the two work by different methods...
s, Bessel filter
Bessel filter
In electronics and signal processing, a Bessel filter is a type of linear filter with a maximally flat group delay . Bessel filters are often used in audio crossover systems...
s, and low-noise amplifier
Low-noise amplifier
Low-noise amplifier is an electronic amplifier used to amplify possibly very weak signals . It is usually located very close to the detection device to reduce losses in the feedline. This active antenna arrangement is frequently used in microwave systems like GPS, because coaxial cable feedline is...
s (LNA). TriQuint's products are also used by the military.
TriQuint also offers foundry services, allowing TriQuint to manufacture its own products. Additionally, the company allows fabless semiconductor companies
Fabless semiconductor company
A fabless semiconductor company specializes in the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing the fabrication or "fab" of the devices to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry...
to use its facilities for manufacturing.