Plessey Semiconductors, which has been resurrected as the new name for Plus Semi with last month's acquisition of the Plessey-built Roborough fab, was a force to be reckoned with in the world semiconductor industry between 1950 and 1990.
Visiting the company in the 1980s, Intel founder Gordon Moore described the lab work at Plessey as 'outstanding' - adding it was as good as anything going on in
Plessey Semiconductors had made the world's first model of an IC which was shown at the 1957 International Components Symposium.
Plessey's ECL process delivered some of the best performing ICs on the planet - for instance its divider ICs used in TVs.
For many years, Plessey was seen as a 'creamer' - a company which made chips which had superior performance to anything else, so commanding high prices - and then pulled out as other companies got in and prices started to fall.
It was a profitable strategy in an industry whose bane is commoditisation.
Along with many people, I visited the Roborough fab while it was being built.
Plessey's Chairman, Sir John Clark, was not above using the fab to publicly rub the nose of his rival Lord Arnie Weinstock of GEC in the dirt by pointing out he was prepared to build a state-of-the-art fab when Weinstock wasn't.
A few years later, Plessey COO Stuart McIntosh showed the Prince of Wales round Roborough. Coming upon an empty area McIntosh explained it was not facilitised.
"What kind of a word is that?" asked HRH.
"It's an old Scottish word, Sir," replied McIntosh with Gaelic chutzpah.
"No it's not", said HRH, "it's a nasty new American word."
Presumably Lord W had the last laugh and an even bigger opportunity to nose-rub when, rather than building a mere fab, he bought the whole shebang!
Good to know its back in buisness . wonder if the Sentry 7 and Teradyne J941 and 21 are still there ?
Formers Test software
Yes indeed Phil, but it wasn't the last laugh. What happened to Lord W was no laughing matter