Agere Systems

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Agere Systems, Inc.
Industry Semiconductor-Integrated Circuits
Fate Merged into LSI Corporation
Successor LSI Corporation, Avago Technologies, and Intel Corp
Founded spun off from Lucent Technologies on June 1, 2002
Defunct April 2, 2007
Headquarters Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA
Key people
 Richard L. Clemmer, President & CEO
Products Integrated Circuits
Number of employees
 ~17,000

Agere Systems Inc. was an integrated circuit components company based in Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA. Spun out of Lucent Technologies in 2002, Agere was merged into LSI Corporation in 2007.[1][2][3][4] LSI was in turn acquired by Avago Technologies in 2014.

Agere was incorporated on August 1, 2000 as a subsidiary of Lucent Technologies and then spun off on June 1, 2002. The name Agere was that of a Texas-based electronics company that Lucent had acquired in 2000, although the pronunciations of the company names are different. The Texas company was pronounced with three syllables and a hard "g": A-gear-uh[needs IPA]. The company name was pronounced with two syllables and a hard "g": A-gear[needs IPA].

Apart from the main office in Allentown, the company also maintained offices and facilities in:

  • Reading, Pennsylvania, USA: The "Reading Works" facility, formerly Lucent/AT&T and Bell Labs. Closed in 2002.
  • Orlando, Florida, USA: The "Orlando Plant" was Agere's newest wholly owned wafer fabrication facility in the world. Opened in 1984 by AT&T, it was known for a time in the late 1990s as "Cirent Semiconductor" as it was operated as a joint venture with Cirrus Logic Corporation. The Orlando Plant was also home to Bell Labs' "Advanced Research and Development Facility (ADRF). Closed in 2005.
  • Dallas, Texas, USA: Agere Optoelectronics South (OES), formerly Hermann Technologies. Acquired 2000, closed 2002.
  • Whitefield, India: located in the city of Bangalore, which is involved in ASIC design and software development.
  • Raanana, Israel: This office was based on Modem-Art, a developer of advanced processor technology for 3G/UMTS mobile devices, which Agere has acquired in 2005.
  • China: Shanghai and Shenzhen.
  • Nieuwegein, Netherlands: This former NCR / AT&T / Lucent Technologies division known under the name WCND (Wireless Communication Network Division) was active in the development of Wi-Fi-technology and closed December 2004.

Microsoft sued for alleged theft of IP

Microsoft was sued by Agere for theft of key technology used in Internet telephony.[5][6][7] The allegations concern meetings between Agere and Microsoft in 2002 and 2003, where the companies discussed selling Agere's stereophonic acoustic echo cancellation technology to Microsoft. This technology is used to improve the sound of telephone and teleconference communications over the Internet (i.e., VOIP). Just before the agreement was to be signed, Microsoft ended the discussions saying that it made a significant breakthrough in its own, heretofore undisclosed research program, and no longer needed Agere's technology.

References

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External links

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