Profile: Microchip Technology Inc (MCHP.O)

Microchip Technology Incorporated (Microchip), incorporated in 1989, is engaged in developing and manufacturing specialized semiconductor products used by its customers for a variety of embedded control applications. The Company's product portfolio consists of eight-bit, 16-bit and 32 bit peripheral interface controller (PIC) microcontrollers, and 16-bit dsPIC digital signal controllers (DSCs), which feature on-board Flash (reprogrammable) memory technology. Microchip also offers a range of high-performance linear, mixed signal, power management, thermal management, battery management and interface devices. It also makes serial electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROMs). Its products also include microcontrollers, development tools, analog and interface products, and memory products. The Company's product portfolio targets applications and designs in the automotive, communications, computing, consumer and industrial control markets. During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009, the Company acquired Hampshire Company, which is engaged in the large format touch screen controller market; HI-TECH Software, which is a provider of software development tools and compilers, and R&E International, which is engaged in developing integrated circuits for smoke and carbon monoxide detectors and other life-safety systems. In January 2010, the Company announced that it has acquired ZeroG Wireless, Inc.

Microcontrollers

The Company offers a family of microcontroller products featuring an architecture marketed under the PIC brand name. It has shipped over seven billion PIC microcontrollers to customers worldwide since their introduction in the year 1990. Microchip's PIC products are designed for applications requiring field programmability and low power. They feature a variety of memory technology configurations, low voltage and power, and a small footprint. The Company's product architecture features dual-data and instruction pathways, referred to as Harvard dual-bus architecture, a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) and variable length instructions. With approximately 600 microcontrollers in its product portfolio, Microchip targets the eight-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit microcontroller markets.

DSCs are a sub-set of Microchip's 16-bit microcontroller offering. Its dsPIC DSC families integrate the control features of high-performance, 16-bit microcontrollers with the computation capabilities of digital signal processors (DSPs), along with a variety of peripheral functions making them suitable for a number of embedded control applications. The Company's dsPIC product family offers a suite of hardware and software development tools, software application libraries, development boards and reference designs that help in customer application development cycle. The Company has developed advanced user programmability feature by incorporating non-volatile memory, such as Flash, EEPROM and erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM) into the microcontroller product offerings.

Development Tools

The Company offers a range of application development tools. These tools enable system designers to program a PIC microcontroller and dsPIC DSCs for specific applications. Microchip's family of development tools operates in the standard Windows environment on standard personal computer (PC) hardware. These tools range from entry level systems, which include an assembler and programmer or in-circuit debugging hardware, to configured systems that provide in-circuit emulation hardware. Customers moving from entry level designs to those requiring real-time emulation can preserve their investment in learning and tools as they migrate to future PIC devices, since all of the Company's systems share the same integrated development environment. As of March 31, 2009, there were approximately 200 third-party tool suppliers worldwide, whose products supported the Company's microcontroller architecture. Microchip's development tools allow design engineers to develop thousands of application-specific products from the Company's standard microcontrollers. As of March 31, 2009, the Company shipped more than 750,000 development tools.

Analog and Interface Products

The Company's analog and interface products consist of several families with over 550 power management, linear, mixed-signal, thermal management and interface products. During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2009 (fiscal 2009), Microchip had shipped its mixed-signal analog and interface products to over 13,100 end customers.

Memory Products

Microchip's memory products consist of serial EEPROMs. The Company sells these devices primarily into the embedded control market. Serial EEPROM products are used for non-volatile program and data storage in systems, where such data must be either modified frequently or retained for long periods. Serial EEPROMs have a low-input/output (I/O) pin requirement, permitting production of small devices.