Conexant
More info
- Released
- 1999
- Type
- Semiconductors, modem chipsets
- Predecessor
- Rockwell Semiconductor Systems
- Successor
- Acquired by Synaptics in 2017
Rockwell's spun-off chip division, whose silicon sat inside a large share of the world's dial-up modems and whose softmodems tormented Linux users for a decade.
Rockwell International was an aerospace and defence contractor that also happened to make most of the modem chips of the nineties. Hayes, Zoom and hundreds of no-name brands built on the same parts. In the 56k format war Rockwell pushed K56flex against US Robotics' X2 until V.90 merged them in 1998. A year later the semiconductor arm was spun off as Conexant.
The cheap HCF and HSF modems offloaded the work to the host CPU and needed Windows drivers that did not exist for Linux. Conexant soon split up: the wireless business merged with Alpha Industries in 2002 to form Skyworks, and the networking side became Mindspeed. What remained went bankrupt in 2013 and was bought by Synaptics in 2017.