Along with LSI Logic, VLSI Technology defined the leading edge of the application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) business, which accelerated the push of powerful embedded systems into affordable products.

The company was founded in 1979, by a trio from Fairchild Semiconductor by way of Synertek – Jack Balletto, Dan Floyd, and Gunnar Wetlesen – and by Doug Fairbairn of Xerox PARC and Lambda (later VLSI Design) magazine.

It offered a sophisticated package of tools, originally based on the 'lambda-based' design style advocated by Carver Mead and Lynn Conway.

In January 1982, Steve Jobs approached a group of VLSI Technology managers including Jack Balletto with a request: Would they help Apple Inc. build a custom chip for the not-yet-announced Macintosh computer?

In spite of the fact that VLSI's design tools were still in their infancy, the offer proved irresistible because of the prestige the chip would confer on the company if successful.

Prior to VLSI's cell-based offering, the technology had been primarily available only within large vertically integrated companies with semiconductor units such as AT&T and IBM.

The companies' development of automated layout tools was driven by a judgement that other in-market products were not sufficient or adaptable enough for VLSI's use case.

Other significant market entrants with similar capabilities arrived in late 1980s when Tangent Systems released its TanCell and TanGate products.

Meanwhile, VLSI entered the merchant high speed static RAM (SRAM) market as they needed a product to drive the semiconductor process technology development.

The chipsets designed and manufactured by VLSI integrated much of the peripheral I/O logic and thereby substantially lowered the cost of PCs that used Intel or Motorola processors.

It was notable for being a fresh design, without the baggage of legacy EGA/VGA logic, and for direct support of synchronous DRAM, the forerunner of DDR memory.

Desi Rhoden later founded AMI, a consortium of all the major DRAM vendors, which created important standards in DDR memory design.

One of its key sites was in Tempe, Arizona, where a family of highly successful chipsets was developed for IBM PC compatible motherboards and early Apple Power Macintosh PCs.

But, VISTA was a merchant market, 4-chip set that featured an ARM7TDMI processor core, transport and demux and a Mediamatics MPEG 1/2 decoder with On Screen Display logic.

Stimulated by its growth and success in the wireless handset IC area, Philips Electronics acquired VLSI in June 1999, for about $1 billion.