Exar Corporation was an American semiconductor manufacturer active from 1971 to 2017 as a subsidiary of the Japanese firm Rohm. It was acquired by MaxLinear in May 2017 and maintained as a wholly owned subsidiary for a short while.
History
The Japanese semiconductor company Rohm established Exar as a California-based American subsidiary in 1971.[3] At that time, the integrated circuit boards designed and manufactured by Rohm were developed in the United States, and establishing an American subsidiary provided closer ties to the design process and provided a marketing foothold.[3]
In the early 1980s, when Exar was running sales figures of around US$25 million annually, only about one-third of sales were through its parent, Rohm.[3] Part of the success of Exar and Rohm in the early 1980s stemmed from proprietary technologies developed between the two.