The West Bridge is a growing architectural approach, originally developed by Cypress Semiconductor , which enhances and modularizes a peripheral controller in an embedded computer architecture. Conceptually, the West Bridge parallels and complements the decentralization represented by the North Bridge and the South Bridge . Most notably, it has been used by Research in Motion to permit extremely high data transfer rates in its BlackBerry devices.
38-670: While the North Bridge focuses on memory control and the South Bridge focuses on the "slower" capabilities of the motherboard, the West Bridge focuses on peripheral control. The new architectural modularization opens up the potential for increased system performance. Being directly connected, peripheral control can be handled wholly and independently through a West Bridge controller, leaving a processor offloaded and free to focus on other data-intensive operations. While it enhances
76-481: A complete solution for embedded systems . Since the early 1990s, acquisitions have included: Spansion Spansion Inc. was an American -based company that designed, developed, and manufactured flash memory , microcontrollers , mixed-signal and analog products, and system-on-chip (SoC) solutions. The company had more than 3,700 employees in 2014 and was headquartered in Sunnyvale, California . Spansion
114-503: A degree of autonomy and has acquired other small technology companies. In addition, Cypress has been an active acquirer of smaller technology companies. In addition, Cypress has incorporated some of its technology into subsidiaries, to speed up development of such products as the PSoC Programmable System-on-Chip (SoC) that integrates analog and digital components with a microcontroller on a single chip to form
152-526: A major competitor in the NOR flash market. This buyer consortium offered a higher bid than Cypress and successfully acquired ISSI for $ 731 million. Also in 2015, Cypress tried to acquire Atmel , but was outbid by Dialog Semiconductor (in the end, Microchip Technology made the deal). In April 2016, Cypress announced the acquisition of Broadcom’s Wireless Internet of Things (IoT) business and related assets in an all-cash transaction valued at $ 550 million. Under
190-533: A motion with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware , in April 2010, Spansion won court approval of its plan to exit bankruptcy and was allowed to reorganize the company. On May 10, 2010, Spansion emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Its old common stock was previously deemed to be impaired and then cancelled; the company issued new shares to those to whom it owed money. The company began trading on
228-511: A random read speed of 90-100 nanoseconds (ns) access and offer a page read speed of 25 ns via an 8- word page buffer. Spansion's serial peripheral interface (SPI) devices read information serially, or one bit at a time, requiring fewer connections and pins, allowing for lower costs and simplified board layouts. Serial flash memory is used in applications such as high-end printers, FPGAs , networking equipment and set-top boxes. The Spansion SPI FL family of serial flash memory: Densities for
266-462: A range of product configurations. The Company's products based on NOR flash memory architecture are designed for code storage and execution, and utilize either traditional floating gate technology or its MirrorBit technology. Spansion's NOR and NAND offering was targeted at embedded applications such as automotive, industrial and telecommunications . Spansion concentrates on the embedded electronics market. Its Floating Gate and MirrorBit technology
304-498: Is a founding member of venture capital firm Canyon Bridge Capital Partners Inc, a China state-backed private equity fund , was criticized for the conflict of interest leading Cypress and Canyon Bridge as both companies possibly focus on the same acquisition targets. Rodgers ran a proxy contest against the board , aiming for veteran tech industry board directors Daniel McCranie and Camillo Martino to replace Ray Bingham and Cypress director Éric Benhamou . On June 12, 2017 it
342-542: The ARM Cortex-R5 core and the first series in the Traveo family, MB9D560, operate at 200 MHz. Spansion also acquired power management ICs aimed at energy harvesting and LED lighting. The Buck PMIC for solar and vibrations energy harvesting MB39C811regulates output voltage with the quiescent current of 1.5 μA. The Boost PMIC for solar and thermal energy harvesting MB39C831. Spansion's Easy DesignSim
380-551: The MLC NAND management and enable lowest-cost memory support for a main processor, which otherwise would only support NOR or Single-Level Cell NAND. Some commonly supported interfaces of West Bridge companion chips are: The West Bridge architecture is relevant to a broad range of applications. Common applications include: This computer hardware article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Cypress Semiconductor Cypress Semiconductor Corporation
418-568: The Microcontroller and Analog Business of Fujitsu Semiconductor for approximately $ 110 million and approximately $ 65 million for inventory. Spansion closed the acquisition deal in August 2013. In December 2014, Cypress Semiconductor merged with Spansion in an all-stock deal worth $ 1.59 billion. Shareholders of each side will own about 50 percent of the new company, which will keep the name of Cypress Semiconductor Corp. The companies valued
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#1732773306029456-554: The New York Stock Exchange on June 22, 2010 under the ticker symbol "CODE." John Kispert was named CEO in February 2009, a month before the company's Chapter 11 filing. It was understood that Kispert walked into a " no-win situation ," according to the local media. With the company in turmoil and needing to reduce expenses, Spansion laid off 3,000 employees without severance pay on February 23, 2009. Kispert
494-581: The SPI flash memory devices range from 4 Mb to 1 Gb with uniform 4KB uniform 64KB and uniform 256KB (128Mb – 1Gb FL-S) sectors and 4 Mb with parameter sectors. Spansion developed the HyperFlash NOR memory devices, based on the HyperBus interface. The family features read throughput of up to 333 megabytes per second—more than five times faster than ordinary Quad SPI flash currently available with one-third
532-619: The United States (including San Jose, CA; Lynnwood, WA ; Colorado Springs, CO ; Lexington, KY ; San Diego, CA ; and Beaverton, OR ), Japan ( Tokyo ), Germany ( Langen and Munich ), India ( Bangalore ), China ( Shanghai ), Ukraine ( Lviv ), Ireland ( Dublin and Cork) , Malaysia ( Penang ) and other locations. Cypress had previously divested a large portion of its San Jose campus to SVTC , SunPower and Second Harvest of Silicon Valley . Since its founding, Cypress has acted as an incubator for wholly owned subsidiaries which are given
570-493: The acquisition of Broadcom ’s Wireless Internet of Things Business. The deal was closed in July 2016. In June 2019, Infineon Technologies announced it would acquire Cypress for $ 9.4 billion. The deal closed in April 2020, making Infineon one of the world's top 10 semiconductor manufacturers. Some of its main competitors included Microchip Technology , NXP Semiconductors , Renesas Electronics and Micron Technology . It
608-651: The agreement, ASE Group and Deca will jointly develop the M-Series fan-out manufacturing process and will expand production of chip-scale packages using this technology. Cypress named Hassane El-Khoury its president and chief executive officer, and announced he will join the board of directors on Aug. 11, 2016. In April 2017 Delaware Chancery Court decided Cypress Semiconductor Corp. had to give former CEO Rodgers insight into internal documents related to possible violations of Cypress's Code of Business Conduct and Ethics by executive chairman Ray Bingham. Bingham, who
646-508: The architectural scheme in general and to the product family with which it was introduced by Cypress. Interfaces continually change towards faster, lower power, fewer pins, and newer standards, making it challenging for processors to follow and integrate them. A prime function of West Bridge devices is to enable connection to these varied interfaces. An example of such an interface is NAND Flash , which keeps evolving with new generations of Multi-Level Cell NAND. A West Bridge device might handle
684-401: The company agreed to the offer of Infineon Technologies valued about $ 9 billions (that represents the all-cash buyout price of $ 23.85 per share). This purchase price premium of 55% was the 4th highest premium paid for a public semiconductor company with greater than $ 1 Billion in value since 2014. The price also represented 18.2 times next twelve month average analyst EBITDA estimates, which
722-693: The company switched from the NASDAQ to the New York Stock Exchange . In October 2009, the company announced it would switch its listing to the NASDAQ on November 12, 2009. The AgigA Tech, Inc. subsidiary sells non-volatile random-access memory ( RAM ). It was acquired during the Simtek purchase in August 2008, and marks the second time that Cypress acquired a start-up venture from founder, Ron Sartore, who also co-founded Anchor Chips. The division
760-808: The deal at $ 4 billion. They expected it to close in the first half of 2015 and to cut annual costs by $ 135 million within three years. Cypress President and CEO TJ Rodgers was the CEO of the combined company, which was expected to have $ 2 billion in annual revenue. Spansion Chairman Ray Bingham was the non-executive chairman. Spansion's product portfolio offers NOR densities ranging from four-megabit to eight-gigabits, NAND densities ranging from one- gigabit to eight-gigabits and an array of interfaces and features. It has developed two flash memory technologies, single-bit-per-cell floating gate technology and one-, two- or more-bit-per-cell MirrorBit technology, with MirrorBit products based on two-bits per cell and allowing offering
798-407: The end of Q2 2014, Spansion reported results for its second fiscal quarter; the company reported both GAAP and non-GAAP results due to the impact of fresh start accounting. On a U.S. GAAP basis, Spansion reported net sales of $ 314.7 million, a 61.3% year-over-year increase. On a non‑GAAP basis, gross margin was 33.2%, operating income was $ 22.1 million and net income was $ 15.6 million. After filing
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#1732773306029836-487: The first full year after the transaction closes. At the time of its merger with Spansion in 2015, Cypress Semiconductor had more than 7,000 US and foreign patents. Cypress Semiconductor is a component of the Ocean Tomo 300 Patent Index. Cypress attempted to acquire Integrated Silicon Solution Inc. in 2015 but was thwarted by a competing bid by Chinese buyer consortium Uphill Investment Co., which included GigaDevice ,
874-559: The first single- die , 4-gigabit NOR product implemented at the 65-nm node. In 2013 Spansion acquired the Fujitsu microcontroller and analog business, including 8- 16- and 32-bit microcontroller families. Spansion's FM MCU microcontroller family, which was based on the ARM Cortex-M4, M3, M0+ CPUs comes in packages from 32 to 216 pins, with flash memory densities between 56KB and 2MB. The Spansion Traveo microcontrollers are based on
912-422: The number of pins of parallel NOR flash. Spansion HyperFlash memory devices provide a migration path—from single Quad SPI to Dual Quad SPI to HyperFlash Memory—allowing system applications to be scaled to different levels of flash performance when paired with compatible controllers, giving OEMs the ability to offer different product models with a single design. In August 2011, Spansion announced that it had created
950-428: The system's performance via the processor, a West Bridge companion chip may also serve directly as a peripheral accelerator. The term West Bridge was first introduced by Cypress Semiconductor , which designs products to provide optimal performance and connectivity in the embedded world. The name was chosen deliberately to be a meme consistent with the North Bridge and South Bridge concepts. "West Bridge" refers both to
988-461: The terms of the deal, Cypress will acquire Broadcom's Wi-Fi , Bluetooth and Zigbee IoT product lines and intellectual property , along with its WICED brand and developer ecosystem. In April 2016, it was announced that Advanced Semiconductor Engineering, Inc. will invest $ 60 million in Deca and will license Deca’s M-Series fan-out wafer-level packaging (FOWLP) technologies and processes. As part of
1026-404: The transactions of the merger in an all-stock, tax-free transaction valued at approximately $ 5 billion. Cypress shareholders approved the issuance of 2.457 shares of Cypress stock to Spansion shareholders for each Spansion share they own. The merger is expected to achieve more than $ 135 million in cost synergies on an annualized basis within three years and to be accretive to non-GAAP earnings within
1064-592: Was a comprehensive online design support tool for LED Driver Circuit designers. Spansion had its headquarters in Sunnyvale, California . The company's main wafer fabrication facility, known as Fab 25, was in Austin, Texas . The company also operated a final-manufacturing facility, in Bangkok, Thailand . In Penang, Malaysia , the company had a design center to focus on providing design, layout, CAD and verification services and to support to cross-site design centers. At
1102-413: Was a joint-venture between AMD and Fujitsu . In August 2013, Spansion closed the acquisition of the Microcontroller and Analog Business of Fujitsu Semiconductor Limited. Spansion had more than 10,000 customers worldwide. Its products were used in the following markets: automotive electronics, home appliances, peripheral computing equipment, consumer equipment, industrial, and networking. Spansion
1140-495: Was acquiring Israel-based Saifun Semiconductors Ltd., non-volatile memory provider. The companies signed an agreement that consolidated all MirrorBit and NROM IP, design and manufacturing expertise within Spansion. As a result, Spansion expanded its IP portfolio and enabled its immediate entry into the technology licensing business. The acquisition closed on March 18, 2008. In April 2013, Spansion announced that it would acquire
1178-563: Was an American semiconductor design and manufacturing company. It offered NOR flash memories, F-RAM and SRAM Traveo microcontrollers, PSoCs , PMICs , capacitive touch-sensing controllers, Wireless BLE Bluetooth Low-Energy and USB connectivity solutions. Its headquarters were in San Jose, California , with operations in the United States, Ireland, India and the Philippines. In April 2016, Cypress Semiconductors announced
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1216-456: Was founded by T. J. Rodgers and others (Fritz Beyerlein, Fred Jenne, Steven H. Kaplan, R. Michael Starnes and Lowell Turriff) from Advanced Micro Devices . It was formed in 1982 with backing by Sevin Rosen and went public in 1986. The company initially focused on the design and development of high speed CMOS SRAMs , EEPROMs , PAL devices , and TTL devices . Two years after going public
1254-757: Was founded in 1993 as a joint venture between AMD and Japan's Fujitsu Ltd. Spansion was formerly known as FASL LLC. Once AMD took control of the company in 2003, it was renamed Spansion LLC in June 2004 and officially spun off as an independent maker of flash memory chips in December 2005. After joining the company in 2009, CEO, John Kispert, brought Spansion out of bankruptcy with over $ 1 billion in sales and 10,000 customers worldwide. In 2013, Spansion purchased Fujitsu's microcontroller and analog business for $ 175 million, expanding Spansion's work force by more than 1,000 worldwide. In October 2007, Spansion announced that it
1292-505: Was given a compensation package that could pay a $ 1.7 million bonus if he successfully found a buyer for the company or liquidated the company within six months. Kispert never saw this bonus since he opted to file bankruptcy in March 2009. Managers received an 11% increase in pay, negating the effect of an earlier 10% salary cut. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on March 1, 2009, amid growing anger of former employees. In 2010,
1330-596: Was made public that Ray Bingham stepped down from the board. Prior to Bingham’s resignation, shareholder-advisory firms ISS , Glass Lewis and Egan-Jones had recommended McCranie and Martino, Rodgers's nominees, citing "additional - and sharper - questions not only regarding the board's handling of this situation but also regarding the potential for conflicts of interest inherent in Bingham's dual roles." On June 20, 2017, both of Rodgers's nominees won victories by substantial margins. In 2019, under CEO Hassane El-Khouri,
1368-580: Was sold to the Unigen Corporation in May 2021. In November 2011, Cypress also backed a packaging firm called Deca Technologies, Inc. In December 2014, Cypress Semiconductor merged with Spansion in an all-stock deal worth $ 1.59 billion. The merger represented the combination of two companies that were No. 1 in their respective memory markets and have successfully diversified into embedded processing. In March 2015, Cypress and Spansion completed of
1406-516: Was the 4th highest EBITDA multiple paid for a public semiconductor company with a value greater than $ 1 Billion since 2014. The acquisition was announced complete on April 17, 2020, ending the independent history of Cypress Semiconductors. Cypress was headquartered in San Jose, CA and had manufacturing plants in Austin, TX and Bloomington, MN , assembly and test operations in the Philippines and Bangkok, Thailand . Cypress had design facilities in
1444-592: Was used to make networking and telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics, gaming equipment, TV set-top control boxes, automotive equipment and personal computer peripherals. The company's NOR products offer designers the option to choose from 5V, 3V and 1.8V products that range from 1Mb to 2Gb.NAND products offer 3V and 1.8V products that range from 1Gb to 8 Gb. Spansion's standard parallel NOR flash includes Spansion's MirrorBit NOR GL, AL AS, CD-CL, F, JL, PL, NS/VS/XS and WS families of flash memory. The products operate anywhere at 1.8 to 5.0 volts ( Vcc ), feature
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