Chips from Signetics

In 1961, the US company Signetics was founded, which specializes in integrated circuits (IC). A few years later, Signetics is one of the largest IC manufacturers in Silicon Valley, also thanks to the military order situation. However, losses follow and in 1975 Signetics is taken over by Philips. In the same year the Signetics 2650 CPU also comes on the market and later the more stable 2650A. Signetics/Philips develops the Signetics 2636, a programmable video interface for the CPU. Later, an improvement in the form of Signetics 2637 follows. Together, the CPU and the video chip form a basis for game consoles to which several manufacturers of consumer electronics saddle up; 60 console variants are known.