Here are the ten best British chip companies.
| Company | Claim to Fame |
| AEI Semiconductors (later Marconi-Elliott Microelectronics and MEDL) | 50 years of manufacturing |
| Elliott Automation Microelectronics | Established MOS line in 1967 |
| Ferranti Semiconductors | Invented gate array; first European microprocessor |
| Plessey Semiconductors | Industry-leading ECL |
| CML | 39 years manufacturing consumer ICs |
| Inmos | Invented Transputer; had industry-leading 16K NMOS SRAM and first CMOS DRAM |
| ARM | Wireless industry standard microprocessor |
| Wolfson Microelectronics | Industry-leading audio chips. |
| Cambridge Silicon Radio | Industry's No.1 Bluetooth supplier |
| Element 14 | Fastest-ever capital appreciation. (£13m TO $594m in 15 months) |
Not sure where you are coming from, but one of the first two ASIC companies in the world (before the ASIC acronym was coined) was Interdesign, in about 1972. I worked there from 1973 to 1974. The company was later bought by Plessey, and then became part of Ferranti. But the Interdesign operation was started in Silicon Valley (actually in a small office behind a chinese restaurant, where I now get my shoes repaired!), not in the UK. The other pre-ASIC company (Exar) also was in Silicon Valley.