Cirrus Logic
More info
- Creator
- Suhas Patil
- Released
- 1981
- Type
- Semiconductor company
- Website
- cirrus.com
Chipmaker that went from graphics in half the PCs of the early '90s to being, for practical purposes, Apple's audio chip supplier.
Suhas Patil founded it as Patil Systems in 1981 and renamed it Cirrus Logic in 1984. In the early '90s Cirrus graphics chips sat in a huge share of budget desktops and laptops — often the silicon Windows 3.1 had to make do with. When 3D accelerators arrived the company lost its footing and eventually walked away from graphics.
Audio became the second act: converters, amplifiers and codec chips for phones. Apple has long accounted for the large majority of revenue, which means any rumour about the iPhone switching suppliers moves the stock more than anything Cirrus itself does. Headquarters have long been in Austin, Texas.