Go to News

Lansdale Celebrates 40th Anniversary

(07/09/2004)

-by john Redding

TEMPE, ARIZONA - Lansdale Semiconductor, Inc., a pioneer and global leader in the semiconductor aftermarket, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year. The company was founded in 1964 by Edward Pincus when he purchased the rights to manufacture Philco-Ford's germanium transistor product lines, along with their excess inventory. In 1976, the company moved its headquarters from Lansdale, Penn., to Phoenix, Ariz., after acquiring another product line from Motorola.

Lansdale's current president, R. Dale Lillard, joined the company in 1980 as Operations Manager. Lillard came from the Motorola Semiconductor Product Sector in Phoenix, where he had served as a Product Manager and in other engineering management positions. Six months later, at 29 years of age, the company appointed him president. In 1983, Lansdale's owners sold the business to a management group, Electronics Technologies, Inc., that included Lillard. Recognizing the critical demand for aftermarket manufacturing in the semiconductor industry, Lansdale began buying tooling from a number of OEMs to manufacture mature integrated circuits (ICs), eventually moving the company out of transistors and into military ICs. In 1987, Lillard bought out his partners to become the sole owner of the company. At the same time, to better reflect the new business direction of the company, he changed the company's name, Lansdale Transistor & Electronics, Inc., to Lansdale Semiconductor, Inc. During this period of transition, Lillard coined the term "semiconductor aftermarket". With the new product lines, Lansdale needed a facility dedicated to fabricating ICs. In 1983, Lillard bought and converted an existing 3-inch wafer fabrication facility located in Santa Monica, Calif. Within a few years, the facility needed new equipment to increase its production capacity to meet Lansdale's increased sales. In 1993, Lillard decided to close the California facility and build a new wafer fabrication facility in Tempe, Ariz., which would include a line for 4-inch wafers. Ground was broken and construction began in September of 1993, with the new facility, including a Class 100 clean room, fully operational by the early spring of 1994. In 2000, Lansdale sold the wafer fabrication facility to a group of former Intel executives with a long-term guaranteed contract for die support. According to Lillard, "Spinning off the fab operations has allowed Lansdale to focus its resources on expanding its commercial and military IC aftermarket product lines." Today, Lansdale Semiconductor, Inc., supports both commercial and military Diminishing Manufacturing Source (DMS) ICs. The company continues to pursue the acquisition of commercial and military end-of-life and discontinued product lines from major OEMs for the growing semiconductor aftermarket, extending the life cycles of those technologies and offering an indefinite source of supply for them.

About Lansdale Semiconductor

Based in Tempe, Ariz., U.S.A., Lansdale Semiconductor, Inc., is the semiconductor aftermarket pioneer and continues to be a leading supplier of commercial, military, aerospace, and telecommunications integrated circuits. Lansdale manufactures over 2,500 critical applications, older technology ICs that were originally designed and manufactured by Fairchild, Motorola, Intel, and Philips. Lansdale is certified and approved by the Department of Defense Supply Center, Columbus (DSCC) as a Qualified Manufacturer (QM) under the MIL-PRF-38535 Qualified Manufacturing List (QML). Lansdale Semiconductor's web site can be accessed at www.lansdale.com.