SGS (Societa Generale Semiconduttore)

Company Pedigree

Ascendant Companies		Descendent Companies
Company	Comments	Company	Comments
Olivetti & Telettra	Founding Italian companies for SGS, in the 1950's	SGS-Fairchild	In 1960 Fairchild formed a partnership with the Italian government. This partnership took the form of an investment in Italy's SGS resulting in new company SGS-Fairchild SpA. In 1968 Fairchild withdrew from the partnership. SGS-Fairchild was renamed back to SGS.
Fairchild	In 1960 Fairchild invested in SGS and SGS was renamed Fairchild-SGS.	SGS-Ates	In 1971, SGS and Ates were merged by the Italian government.

Company Overview

In the 1950's the Italian company, SGS, was working GE transistor technology, but in 1960 SGS developed a strategic relationship with Fairchild creating Fairchild-SGS. Under the Fairchild relationship SGS developed skills, production capabilities, and research and development facilities. Fairchild benefited by this beachhead in the European market.

In 1968, Fairchild withdrew from the relationship. SGS did not do well financially and by 1971 the Italian government decided to merge SGS with Ates, a subsidiary of the Italian telecommunications company Stet.

SGS and Fairchild-SGS developed transistor and logic chips.

Noted Employees

Federico Faggin (Intel 4004, Intel 8080, Zilog Z80 designer) - Started with Olivetti, moved to SGS-Fairchild, moved to Fairchild, then to Intel, and then started Zilog.