Major semiconductor companies are engaged in the manufacturing of integrated circuits, microprocessors, logic devices, chipsets and memory chips. A wide variety of users purchase these products, including telecom, computer, networking, wireless and other instrumentation industries. According to the Semiconductor Industry Association, this sector is unique in comparison to other industries in that the chipmakers dramatically increase the performance of their products each year while decreasing prices. The result is superior technologies that are more affordable. In 2002, the U.S. semiconductor industry’s sales were $70 billion with worldwide sales of $141 billion. The sector employs 270,000 people.

Fenwick & West provides a wide range of legal advice to semiconductor clients including compensation and benefits; fundraising; corporate; patent litigation; litigation and mergers and acquisitions. Some of our more notable matters are the representation of Elantec Semiconductor’s $1.4B acquisition by Intersil; the representation of Scenix Semiconductor in six patent lawsuits by larger competitor Microchip Technology, Inc. and the representation of Information Storage Devices, Inc. in three patent lawsuits by larger competitor Atmel Corporation. The following companies are representative of Fenwick & West’s semiconductor clients.