Applied Micro Circuits Corporation

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (also known as AppliedMicro, AMCC or APM) was a fabless semiconductor company designing network and embedded Power ISA (including a Power ISA license), and server processor ARM (including an ARMv8-A license), optical transport and storage products.

Applied Micro Circuits Corporation
Public:
IndustrySemiconductors & Related Devices
FateAcquired by MACOM Technology Solutions
Founded1979
DefunctJanuary 26, 2017 (January 26, 2017)
HeadquartersSanta Clara, California, USA
Key people
Paramesh Gopi, CEO
RevenueUS$206M (FY 2010)[1]
US$-26.1M (FY 2010)[1]
US$-7.49M (FY 2010)[1]
Total assetsUS$316M (FY 2010)[2]
Total equityUS$281M (FY 2010)[2]
Number of employees
~600
Websiteapm.com

History

In 2004, AMCC bought assets, IP and engineers concerning the PowerPC 400 microprocessors from IBM for $227 million and they now market the processors under their own name. The deal also included access to IBM's SoC design methodology and advanced CMOS process technology.

In 2009, AppliedMicro changed their branding from AMCC to AppliedMicro, but still retain the name "Applied Micro Circuits Corporation" officially.

In 2011, AppliedMicro became the first company to implement the ARMv8-A architecture with its X-Gene Platform. In November 2012 at ARM TechCon, AppliedMicro demonstrated advanced web search capabilities and the ability to handle big data workloads in an Apache Hadoop software environment with the X-Gene Platform using FPGA emulation. A silicon implementation of X-Gene was first exhibited publicly in June 2013.[3]

In April 2016, information about the forthcoming X-Gene 3 server chips was made available. The release schedule was for the second half of 2017. The company projected an improved performance, over the X-Gene 2, that with allow it to better compete with servers using the x86-64 architecture.[4]

In November 2016, MACOM Technology Solutions announced that they would purchase AppliedMicro.[5] The acquisition was completed on January 26, 2017.[6] MACOM then sold the processor division to the private equity firm The Carlyle Group during October 2017.

Memberships

AppliedMicro has a sponsor level membership of Power.org and is one of the original members. AppliedMicro is also executive member (Chairman position) of the Ethernet Alliance. AppliedMicro is also a member of the Open Compute Project.

Business groups

Processor products
X-Gene based Gigabyte motherboard

The Processor Products group designs and markets embedded microcontrollers as well as server processor, packet and storage processors. It includes the network processors of former MMC Networks (acquired October 2000) with IBM PowerPC 4xx series microcontrollers (acquired April 2004).

Since purchasing the IBM PowerPC 400 family (under the 405 and 440 series product names), AppliedMicro has developed the 460 series with 440 CPU, and a multicore Power architecture devices.

In January 2008, the AppliedMicro PowerPC 405EX was awarded Product of the Year 2007, by Electronic Product magazine.

In October 2011, AppliedMicro announced its X-Gene Platform, an ARM 64-bit solution aimed at cloud and enterprise servers.

Connectivity products group

The Connectivity Products group of AppliedMicro designs, manufacturers and markets physical layer devices, framers/mappers and switch fabric devices.

Acquisitions

Throughout the years, AppliedMicro has acquired smaller companies to enter new markets.

Date Acquired company Expertise Amount
April 1998 Ten Mountain Design transceiver design
March 1999 Cimaron Communications SONET chips $115M in stock
April 2000 Yuni Networks terabit switch fabrics $241M in stock
April 2000 Chameleon Technologies Fibre Channel and SONET products
April 2000 PBaud Logic Inc. SONET and forward-error-correction
September 2000 Silutia CMOS mixed-signal design 566,000 shares of stock
October 2000 MMC Networks network processors $4500M in stock
March 2001 Raleigh Technology Corporation (RTC) Ethernet QoS ASICs[7]
September 2003 PowerPRS product line from IBM switch fabrics $47M
December 2003 JNI Fibre Channel products $196M in cash
April 2004 PowerPC 400 series product line from IBM embedded microprocessors $227M in cash
April 2004 3ware RAID controllers $150M in cash
August 2006 Quake Technologies 10 Gb Ethernet transceivers $69M in cash

Class-action lawsuit

In 2005, the company paid $60 million to settle a class-action lawsuit on behalf of investors against the company and certain of its current and former officers and directors.[8] The suit had charged the company with issuing a series of materially false and misleading statements concerning the company's operations and prospects for Q4 2001 and beyond.[9] Under the terms of the settlement, the company and defendants denied any wrongdoing. About half of the amount of the settlement was covered by insurance.[8]

gollark: I'm subscribed to a service which sends me emails about what my local MP (I think the approximate US equivalent is a senator?) does, but it turns out it's actually very boring and I have no idea if they're doing a good job.
gollark: In theory voters should do that, but it's hard to actually *check* if your politician did stupid things, and it is NOT very granular.
gollark: It would probably be good if there was some mechanism for punishing politicians who spend money on things which turned out to be bad/stupid/pointless. Although someone would have to evaluate bad/stupid/pointlessness somehow.
gollark: They're still very happy to randomly spend money because the incentives to spend it on useful things are lacking.
gollark: Yes. That.

References
  1. Applied Micro Circuits (AMCC) annual SEC income statement filing via Wikinvest.
  2. Applied Micro Circuits (AMCC) annual SEC balance sheet filing via Wikinvest.
  3. "AMCC X-Gene 64-bit silicon spotted in the wild". SemiAccurate. Retrieved 14 June 2013. SemiAccurate has been waiting for one big thing before declaring ARM servers real and AMCC has just delivered that. If you have been waiting for ARM V8 silicon to arrive, may we present to you AMCC X-Gene silicon in the wild.
  4. http://semiaccurate.com/2016/04/25/appliedmicros-x-gene-3-aims-for-intels-e5-xeons/
  5. "ARM's Race: Who Will Buy Applied Micro's Compute Unit? | Light Reading". Light Reading. Retrieved 2016-11-24.
  6. "MACOM Successfully Completes Acquisition of AppliedMicro" (Press release). January 26, 2017.
  7. "Company Overview of Raleigh Technology Corporation". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved 2 October 2012. Raleigh Technology Corporation designs, develops and markets application specific integrated circuits for Ethernet local-area network switches, routers, and gateways. The company's product is aimed at the higher priced, higher margin market for circuits with value-added features. The company's integrated circuits will let large firms with Ethernet local-area networks converge their voice, data, and video networks by providing guaranteed bandwidth to voice and video.
  8. "Applied Micro Circuits settles lawsuit". January 2005. Retrieved Jul 24, 2013.
  9. "Cauley Geller Bowman & Coates, LLP Announces Class Action Lawsuit Against Applied Micro Circuits Corporation Seeking Damages On Behalf of Investors - AMCC". Cauley Bowman Carney & Williams. 25 May 2001. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
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