Where do semiconductor foundries come from?

Have you ever wondered how we got from a world solely occupied by semiconductor vendors with their own fabs to today’s hodgepodge of IDMs (independent device manufacturers, the new name for the old-style “semiconductor vendor”), fab-lite vendors, and fables vendors? Well, Paul McLellan over at SemiWiki has just written a short, short history for you. It should take less than five minutes to read.

A Brief History of Semiconductors: the Foundry Transition