AMI formed in July 1966 by several former employees of the pioneering
General Micro-electronics (GMe). In 1966 GMe was purchased by
Philco-Ford and many employees left to form their own companies like
Electronic Arrays and AMI. AMI initially focused on custom logic design and manufacturing for other companies, including the US military. In early 1969 they delivered an
electronic calculator chipset for
Smith Corona's
Marchant division (SCM), which was used in the SCM Cogito 414 electronic calculator. From this start, AMI introduced a series of new calculator chipsets that came to dominate the industry. This success did not go unnoticed, and by late 1971 a number of larger companies, including
Texas Instruments,
General Instrument,
Mostek and
Electronic Arrays all introduced simpler and less expensive versions that quickly drove AMI out of the market leadership position. After this time, AMI leveraged its calculator experience to introduce the calculator-like
S2000 and
S9209 designs intended for use in products like
cash registers or
gasoline pumps. The 9202 is historically notable as the first microprocessor that could be purchased for under $10 (in lots of 5,000). They also signed
second source agreements with a number of companies to produce and sell their designs, including a major partnership with
Motorola to produce the
Motorola 6800 and the wide variety of support chips for that line. AMI also used its calculator experience to work with companies on new custom designs. Among these were a variety of drivers for
digital watches,
ROM chips, and custom controllers for products like
microwave ovens, digital tuners for
television and
FM radio, and systems for
dashboards in cars. Through the mid-1970s, these systems were responsible for about half the company's work. They also invested heavily in
dynamic RAM production, believing this would be a major source of income in the future. As newer low-cost processors emerged in the second half of the 1970s, AMI withdrew from the processor market and concentrated on its custom design work and also used its production capability to become what would later be known as a
semiconductor foundry. Among the products it produced for other companies was
Atari's
POKEY chip, produced in the millions. By the 1990s, the company mainly focused on mixed-signal
ASICs, mixed meaning a combination of digital and analog.
Japan Energy subsidiary GA-TEK, owned the majority of the company by the late 1990s. In 2000, 80% of the company was purchased by The
venture capital group
Francisco Partners from
Japan Energy subsidiary GA-TEK, and were renamed
AMI Semiconductor, or
AMIS, in January 2001. AMIS was in turn purchased by
onsemi in 2008, and no longer operates as a separate company. ==References==