Synertek

Synertek, Inc. was an American semiconductor manufacturer founded in 1973. The initial staff consisted of Bob Schreiner (the CEO), Dan Floyd, Jack Balletto, and Gunnar Wetlesen and Zvi Grinfas. Schreiner, Floyd, Balletto and Wetlesen were all formerly of Fairchild Semiconductor, and Synertek is thus one of the many "Fairchildren". The company became a major vendor during the late 1970s and early 1980s on the strength of their licensed production of the MOS 6502, one of the most successful microprocessors of the era. Synertek won supply deals with Apple Computer and Atari, who would produce millions of home computer and games consoles with Synertek 6502's inside. Synertek's original production factories had been cobbled together with used equipment, and quickly ran out of capacity for ever-growing orders. The board of directors was unwilling to fund the construction of a new factory that could handle the demand. This led to a 1979 deal with Honeywell, who agreed to buy the company and operate Synertek as a hands-off division. This almost immediately led to problems when Honeywell's management failed to create a stock options program; top managers began to leave the company and they found it impossible to hire new talent without such a program. By the early 1980s, the company was hollowed out. When both Apple and Atari turned to the Motorola 68000, sales evaporated and they had no new products to offer. Honeywell closed the division in 1985. The company's initial products included custom-designed devices, and line of standard products, static RAMs, ROMs, dynamic and static shift registers, built using MOS/LSI technology. Early in the company's history, Schreiner decided the company would not be able to develop a microprocessor of their own, not because of any technical limitations, but because they would not have the capability to build up the required support systems, especially software like compilers. He had noticed while working at General Electric's computer division that the software was always late and overbudget and felt the same problem would kill their small company.