Manufacturer Introduction: Spansion Inc. (Cypress Semiconductor) Manufacturer

Spansion is a global leader in the designing and manufacturing of embedded systems solutions. It is an American company that manufactures products such as flash memory chips, microcontrollers, mixed-signal devices, and intelligent devices, among an array of other electronics.

Spansion Inc is right at the heart of the high-end electronic systems that are driving modern technological solutions. The company’s products are used in application areas such as automotive, manufacturing, consumer electronics, and power systems, among many other products.

 Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, the company had more than 3700 employees up to 2014. It used to operate as a joint venture between AMD and Fujitsu. It was founded in 1993 as a collaboration between these two major manufacturers in the electronics industry. Previously, the company was known as FASL LLC. It changed its name to Spansion in 2003 after the takeover by AMD. The name was officially changed to Spansion in 2004.

Spansion had more than 10,000 customers worldwide and recorded sales exceeding $1 billion. This just shows how the brand was trusted because of the quality of its products. These customers came from different industries such as automotive,  consumer electronics, and many others that we have already mentioned. In 2005, Spansion was mainly known for manufacturing flash memory chips.

 Spansion mergers and acquisition

Being a major name in the industry, Spansion had been characterized by a series of mergers and takeovers.

 It all started in 2007 when the company announced that it was in the process of acquiring Saifun Semiconductors Ltd, a company that specialized in producing non-volatile memory modules. These two companies agreed to consolidate MirrorBit, and  NROM  IP, design and manufacturing processes to be handled by Spansion. This expanded the expansion’s muscles in the electronics industry.

Another major acquisition took place in 2013 when Spansion announced that it was planning to acquire Anaog and Microcontroller units of Fujistu Semiconductor.  In this deal that was signed in 2013, Spansion acquired Fujistu’s inventory which was worth $65 million.

 It was in December 2014 that Cypress Semiconductor merged with Spansion in an all-stock merger that was estimated to be $5 billion. In this acquisition, the Spansion chairman became the non-executive chairman.

 Spansion locations

 For years since it was founded, Spansion had its main headquarters in Sunnyvale California. Similarly, the company’s main wafer fabrication facility was based in Austin Texas. Beyond the USA, the company had a fully-fledged manufacturing facility in Thailand.  Its main design center was based in Penang Malaysia and focused on all the key elements of chip design such as layout and CAD services.

Spansion Products

Spansion had a rich product portfolio that featured both the NOR and NAND  families that came in different densities. It also manufactures a broad array of interfaces that were and still are used in different electronic applications.

The company is known mainly for its flash memory modules. These memory technology products came in different features and technical specifications. Its flash memory modules that run on the NOR architecture are used for data storage and processing. However, they still ride on the traditional floating gate technology.

Both the NOR and the NAND products that the company produces were mainly designed to be used in embedded systems such as automotive and industrial applications. The company concentrated on the embedded electronics market such that most of its products were focused on this area. It expanded to cover other electronics in the consumer electronics arena such as gaming equipment, home appliances, and entertainment devices, among many others.

The NOR products from Spansion come in different power options which include 3V, 5V, and 1.8V. They also come in different flash memory storage capacities ranging from 1Mb to 2Mb. On the other hand, the NAND products from Spansion come in 1.8V and 3V. Their storage capacities range between 1 GB and 8 GB.

Spansion also produces a wide range of standard parallel flash memory products. They include  MirrorBit NOR GL, CD-CL, F, JL, WS, and AL AS families of flash memory devices. The operating voltage of these flash memory devices ranges between 1.8V to 5.0V, and their read speeds range between 900-100 nanoseconds.

Serial Peripheral Interface (SPI)

Spansion also specializes in the manufacturing of serial peripheral interfaces (SPI). These devices were designed to read data or information serially, meaning one bit at a time. The operation of SPI reduced the number of pins that were required for making connections with other devices. It also lowered the cost of designing and implementing board layouts. Serial flash memory devices from Spansion were used in different applications such as networking equipment, high-end printers, set-top boxes, and FPGAs.

HyperFlash NOR

HyperFlash NOR is another major family of products from Spansion. These flash memory devices were based on the HyperBus Interface. An important attribute of this family of memory products is speed. They have a read-throughput speed of up to 333mbps. This is faster than most flash memory devices on the market.

Other than the speed advantage, the HyperFlash memory from Spansion comes with a migration path which makes it easier for system applications to be scaled to different levels depending on their performance and memory needs. This is quite vital especially when you want to pair a flash memory with other compatible devices such as controllers and even processors.

Microcontroller and power management ICs

Beyond the flash memory devices, Spansion expanded its product portfolio by venturing into the production of microcontrollers. To do this, the company acquired the Fujitsu microcontroller and analog business in 2013. The acquisition covered 8-bit,16-bit, and 32-bit microcontroller families.

Spansion ventured into power management ICs that are used for energy harvesting applications. These chips are also ideal for LED lighting projects. This venture saw the company producing Buck PMIC which is used for power management solar power systems. These chips were also used for energy harvesting from thermal systems.

Spansion in the electronics market

Spansion is quite a big name in the electronics components market, especially when it comes to microcontrollers. It has a good reputation for designing and manufacturing quality IC chips for modern technology.

To ensure that its products reach the customers, Spansion has an expansive distribution network. It has authorized suppliers and distributors around the world to distribute its products. ICRFQ is one such supplier. We source original microcontrollers and other IC chips from Spansion. Contact us for quality and original electronic components that are manufactured by Spansion.