Vishay popularly known as Vishay Intertechnology Inc. is the largest manufacturer of semiconductors and other electronic components in the world. Vishay has manufacturing plants in five Asian countries and in Israel, China, and America where it manufactures diodes, optoelectronics, rectifiers, MOSFETS, selected and integrated resistors, inductors, circuits and capacitors. As per a report, Vishay had about 22, 300 permanent employees by December 2009 and provided over 2.0 billion US dollars in revenue.

Background information

This company was founded by Dr. Felix Zandman in 1962 and the company began its operations with a technology which had two major product lines with one line offering foil resistance gages and the other line offering foil resistors. In 1985, the company had grown to become the leader in manufacturing these two products. This growth led to it acquiring a series of company which later helped it to become a manufacturer of a broader line of electronic components. In 2009, the company announced it was to create a company that would focus on the Vishay’s precision foil technology. About 10 percent of all Vishay’s annal revenue is represented by the Vishay Precision Group. This group includes product lines like load cells, on board weighing, Bulk Metal Foil resistors, process weighing and micro-measurements. As from 1985, Vishay has been in pursuit of a business strategy that entails the following elements:

• Expanding its business but majorly in the industry of electronic components. This is to be done by primarily acquiring other companies in the manufacture of electronic components.
• Transferring their operations especially to countries with incentives that are government sponsored and with low labor cost.
• Reducing expenses
• Ensuring larger productions of the electronic products in areas with greater demand for the products
• Strengthening their bonds with strategic partners and customers, and,
• To continue in producing new electronic products as spelled by demand and the changing times.

With this business strategy, Vishay has seen tremendous growth from being just a small company manufacturing company dealing with resistance gages and resistors to becoming the largest supplier and manufacturer of a wide range of electronic components in the world.

Vishay quality and environment

Vishay intertechnology realizes the importance of environmental issues that are associated with use of a number of substances. This has led to the company, developing a very active program that it uses eliminate if possible or reduce substances that pose the greatest risks to the environment. For this reason, the majority of Vishay products are lead free.

Through, its subsidiary produces components that have improved efficiency of electricity management while at the same time reducing the space required for these components to be functional. The Siliconix branch so far has managed to come up with an analog switch, analog multiplexer, a small outline power and the very first MOSFETs that are built using Trench technology. The Siloconix Vishay branch was founded at the same time as Vishay main company and in 1998, Vishay bought Semiconductor Business Group that included 80.4% Siliconix. Later in 2005, Vishay acquired the remaining percentage of Siliconix thereafter being the sole owner of Siliconix.