verification . please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources . unsourced material may be challenged and removed . september 2014 learn how and when to remove this template message cirrus logic inc. cirrus logic logo traded as nasdaq crus industry semiconductor industry founded 1981 founder dr. suhas patil headquarters austin texas united states key people jason rhode michael l. hackworth revenue 714m 2014 operating income 155m 2014 net income 108m 2014 number of employees 1104 1 website www.cirrus.com cirrus logic inc. is a fabless semiconductor supplier that specializes in analog mixed signal and audio dsp integrated circuits ics . 2 as of 2015 update cirrus logic has its headquarters in austin texas . 2 3 the company s audio processors and audio converters feature in many professional audio and consumer entertainment products including smartphones tablets portable media players automotive entertainment systems home theater receivers televisions and docking stations . cirrus logic s analog mixed signal converter chips are also used in a wide variety of energy related applications including its new line of led controllers for the incandescent light bulb replacement market as well as energy measurement chips for applications such as digital utility meters . dr. suhas patil founded the company as patil systems inc. in salt lake city in 1981 ; it adopted the name cirrus logic when it moved to silicon valley in 1984 . cirrus logic has more than 1 000 patents and more than 600 products serving more than 2 500 end customers globally . contents 1 history 1.1 timeline of key events 2 graphics history 2.1 graphics chipsets 2.2 desktop 2.3 mobile 3 see also 4 references 5 external links history edit patil systems inc. was founded in salt lake city in 1981 by dr. suhas patil in 1983 the company was reorganized by dr. patil kamran elahian and venture capitalist fred nazem whose firm nazem and company provided the company s first start up round of financing . later the company was renamed as cirrus logic when it moved to silicon valley in 1984 to focus on solutions for the growing pc components market . michael hackworth was named president and chief executive officer in january 1985 and served as ceo until february 1999 . it joined the nasdaq market listing in 1989 symbol crus . cirrus logic acquired crystal semiconductor a supplier of analog and mixed signal converter ics in 1991 . in the early 1990s cirrus logic became a supplier of pc graphics chips audio converters and chips for magnetic storage products . david d. french joined cirrus logic inc. as president and chief operating officer in june 1998 and was named chief executive officer in february 1999 . soon after joining the company through an acquisition strategy mr. french repositioned the company into a premier supplier of high performance analog and digital processing chip solutions for consumer entertainment electronics and soon afterwards mr. m. yousuf palla joined as vice president of operations and manufacturing contributing further to its success . in june 2005 cirrus logic sold its video products operation to an investment firm creating privately owned magnum semiconductor . after french resigned in march 2007 jason rhode formerly the vice president and general manager of cirrus logic s mixed signal audio division was named president and ceo in may 2007 . today cirrus logic is focused on its high precision technologies for digital signal processing components for audio and energy markets . in 2014 cirrus logic bought wolfson microelectronics for 291 million . timeline of key events edit 1981 patil systems inc. is founded in salt lake city by dr. suhas patil . company focuses on ic solutions for the growing pc components market . 1984 patil systems inc. renamed cirrus logic and moves headquarters to silicon valley 1989 company goes public and is listed on the nasdaq exchange under the ticker symbol crus . 1991 cirrus logic acquires crystal semiconductor a supplier of analog and mixed signal converter ics . 1992 cirrus logic completes deal for acumos inc. 1998 cirrus logic exits from the pc graphics card business 1998 david d. french joins company as president and chief operating officer in june and becomes chief executive officer in february 1999 . in the fall company spins out its communication business unit . 2001 cirrus logic announces plan to begin exit from magnetic storage chip business . 2001 cirrus logic acquires several start up companies with technologies in video decoding video encoding wireless networking and networked digital audio . 2003 cirrus logic closes wireless networking operations . 2005 cirrus logic sells video product assets to investment firm creating magnum semiconductor company maintains minority equity position . 2007 jason rhode formerly vice president and general manager of cirrus mixed signal audio division is named president and chief executive officer replacing french who resigned in march . in july cirrus logic acquires apex microtechnology a provider of high power products for industrial and aerospace markets . cirrus logic acquires audio chip company tripath after they went bankrupt . 2011 cirrus logic is named to the great place to work institute s list of top small and medium sized companies to work for in america placing at 24 . the company is also named by the austin american statesman as the top central texas employer . 2012 cirrus logic appears at 9 on the great place to work institute s list of top small and medium sized companies to work for in america jumping 16 places compared to the 2011 listing . cirrus logic co founder and chairman of the board michael hackworth passes away in april . company sells its hybrid product line in tucson ariz. to a group of investors creating apex microtechnology as a stand alone company once again . in november the company announces that it is moving its remaining product line team in tucson to its austin headquarters . graphics history edit in the early 1990s cirrus logic was a supplier of low cost pc graphics chips . cirrus microsoft windows 2d gui accelerators gdi were among the fastest in the low end market segment outperforming competing vga chips from oak technologies trident microsystems and paradise western digital . for example the cirrus gd5422 1992 supported hardware acceleration for both 8 bit color and 16 bit color . it was one of the lowest priced svga controllers to support both . by the mid 1990s when pc s had migrated to the pci bus cirrus had fallen behind s3 and trident microsystems . when the announced release date of the gd5470 mondello came and went cirrus s reputation in desktop pc graphics suffered . mondello development took a back seat to the gd5464 which was near completion and proved to be a much faster design with the use of rambus . because of this mondello never got off the ground the company s final graphics chips the gd546x laguna series of pci agp 3d accelerators were novel in that they were one of the few video cards to use rambus rdram . the patented use of tiled memory used by the gd546x chips is still used by nearly all graphics processors today . however like many other 2d 3d chips at the time were gate limited by the process technology available at the time the feature set of perspective correct texture mapping bilinear filtering single pass lighting gouraud shading and alpha blending was incomplete compared to the next generation of 3d chips . the gd546x family was limited by cpu processing at the time cpu s could not feed it enough triangles which was the real performance block . the raw processing power of the gd546x was nearly 2.5 million 25 pixel triangles per second much faster than competitors . when intel announced they were entering the 3d market with the i740 cirrus logic exited the market which at the time for cirrus logic was worth 500 million dollars annually . intel didn t catch up in performance for many years the i740 was not widely accepted and did not win any major designs . emulated cirrus logic graphic cards are used in emulators . qemu emulate the cirrus clgd 5446 pci vga card which is also emulated by the xen hvm kvm and bochs which in addition also emulates the cl gd5430 isa card . graphics chipsets edit cl gd5464 laguna 3d desktop edit cl gd410 420 isa svga chipset video 7 vega vga 1987 cl gd510 520 isa svga eagle ii chipset known for 100 % cga emulation . 1988 cl gd5320 isa svga chipset . 1990 cl gd5401 isa svga chipset also known as acumos vga avga1 cl gd5402 isa svga chipset also known as acumos vga avga2 cl gd5410 isa svga chipset low to mid end dram based cards accelerated some laptop chipsets . known for integrating graphics card components into one chip built in ramdac and clock generators at an early point . 1991 4 cl gd5420 isa svga chipset highly integrated 15 bit ramdac pll 1 mb . cl gd5421 isa svga chipset highly integrated 15 16 bit ramdac pll 1 mb . cl gd5422 enhanced version of the 5420 32 bit internal memory interface 15 16 24 bit ramdac . an isa video card carrying this chipset offered 1280 1024 interlaced max resolution 5 cl gd5424 vlb version of the 5422 but resembles the 5426 in some respects . cl gd5425 true color vga controller w tv out . cl gd5426 hardware bitblt engine . isa bus and vlb up to 2 mb of memory . cl gd5428 enhanced version of the 5426 . faster bitblt engine . cl gd5429 enhanced version of the 5428 ; supports higher memory clock and has memory mapped i o. cl gd5430 similar to 5429 but with 543x core 32 bit host interface . cl gd5434 alpine family chip with 64 bit internal memory interface . only supports 64 bit mode if equipped with 2 mb of video memory ; commonly equipped with 1 mb extendable to 2 mb . cl gd5436 an optimized 5434 . cl gd5440 5430 with motion video acceleration . cl gd54m40 has integrated filters . cl gd5446 64 bit alpine visualmedia accelerator . 2d only ; adds motion video acceleration to the cl gd5436 . cl gd546x the laguna visualmedia family of 2d 3d and video accelerators . 64 and 65 include 3d acceleration . pci agp . these chips use a single channel of rdram memory providing up to 600 mb s bandwidth . the 62 lacks 3d acceleration . all include a bitblt engine video windows and 64 64 hardware cursor . cl gd5480 64 bit alpine accelerator with 100 mhz sgram 6 mobile edit cl gd6235 cl gd610 620 1989 7 cl gd6420 6440 used in some laptops similar to older cirrus chipsets 5410 avga2 . cl gd6205 6215 6225 6235 compatible with the 5420 . cl gd7541 7542 7543 7548 compatible with the 5428 3x . see also edit graphics card graphics processing unit references edit crus profile cirrus logic inc. stock . yahoo finance . retrieved 2015 07 14 . a b technology briefing hardware cirrus shares surge on sales news . new york times . october 2 2003 . retrieved january 14 2015 . christopher calnan october 30 2014 . cirrus logic posts lower q2 profits higher revenue . austin business journal . retrieved january 14 2015 . http findarticles.com p articles mi hb4804 is 199110 ai n17488875 tag content ; col1 http fccid.net number.php id 76031 & fcc j6qgd5422dm2 http www.thefreelibrary.com cirrus logic % 27s new video graphics accelerator offers industry % 27s ... a018832209 http books.google.com books id xtoeaaaambaj & pg pt25 & dq vga cirrus & lr & as drrb is b & as minm is 0 & as miny is & as maxm is 12 & as maxy is 1989 & as brr 1 & as pt magazines & cd 3 v onepage & q