STMicroelectronics: The Turnaround That Created a European Semiconductor Giant

Comments · 177

• CA

  @careycummings9999 · 2 years ago

  Holy Moly. I will never get over how it is these companies can lose sooooo much money, and eventually eek out a small profit, then become huge. It boggles the mind. These histories are just fascinating.

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• DA

  @dairallan · 2 years ago

  The best translation for "Societe Generale" from Italian to English (and the same with Societe Anonyme from French and Spanish) is "company".  So they literally called it "Semiconductor Company".

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• KN

  @knietiefimdispo2458 · 2 years ago

  What a hell of work you must have put into this historical research. Not forgetting the 'Ndrangheta and Mafia threat to every public figures in Italy in the 80's.

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• GD

  @gdavids57 · 2 years ago

  Absent from this history is Thomson's Mostek acquisition in Nov 1985.  While Mostek's DRAM business was flaming out, its SRAM and speciality products added a nice revenue stream to Thomson.  Even more valuable was Mostek's patent portfolio.  Upon the Thomson/SGS merger, SGS immediately shut down the DRAM business.  Over the next couple of years SGS Thomson netted over $450M in license revenue from the Mostek patents.  An important patent area was Mostek's pioneering work on ion implantation which SGS Thomson leveraged not only for the license revenue but also for its own internal use.  I know this story well as I was an application engineer for Mostek from 1980 to Oct 1985 when UTC laid off most of us in preparation for the sale to Thomson.

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• JO

  @JohnVance · 2 years ago

  Still constantly impressed at the speed with which you manage to put out these high-quality, well-researched mini-docs.

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• CA

  @Canada232 · 2 years ago

  Just a little correction, in this context, "società" translates to "company", not "society".  Good video.

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• PR

  @priyanks91 · 2 years ago

  Pasquale has often been quoted as some sort of legend by the oldheads at ST. I had no idea why.<br>Now I do. Thank you <br>-an Indian ST employee

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• SP

  @SpectreMk2 · 1 year ago

  For those wondering, Thomson-CSF is still making radar and avionics as the Thales company. Main clients are Airbus, Dassault, MBDA and Naval Group.

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• EB

  @ebx100 · 2 years ago

  What an amazing man. After retirement, took up humanitarian causes instead of building a super yacht.

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• KI

  @kilerik · 2 years ago

  ST design office in Istanbul was one of the few (and best) places to work if you graduated in microelectronics related areas in early 2000s Turkey. Many of my friends had their first work experiences there.<br><br>ST moved that office under ST-Ericsson (a child company of both) which was doomed from from the start.<br><br>In mid-2010s they crashed and burned and later got sold to Ericsson.

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• OR

  @oranc1168 · 2 years ago

  &quot;because i like pasta&quot; - Asianometry 2024

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• SM

  @smldis · 2 years ago

  Italians dont get offended by wrong pronunciation, BUT beware if you talk about pasta it is a whole different story..

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