SiliconBeat

John Gifford, who founded analog chip maker Maxim Integrated Products and served as its chief executive until his retirement in 2007, passed away Sunday of an apparent heart attack, according to a company press release distributed Monday.

Gifford was born in 1941 and grew up in Los Angeles. After graduating from UCLA in 1963 with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, he worked for Fairchild Semiconductor, first in sales in L.A. and later in marketing in Silicon Valley.

An industry legend, Gifford was one of the many engineers Read the rest of this entry »

It seems likely that whoever is elected president a week from tomorrow, there are some changes in store regarding the growing issue of health care — how to provide it to larger numbers and how to pay for it.

It’s a safe bet that the per capita costs will end up being less than what two directors on the board at Maxim Integrated Products cost in premiums for medical insurance coverage paid for by that company, according to a proxy filed with the SEC for its annual shareholder meeting held today.

Maxim offers medical insurance coverage to those board members who ask for it, which Bergman did last year. Cost to Maxim:  Read the rest of this entry »

Maxim Integrated Products, the Sunnyvale chip maker that recently completed a major restatement project caused by a history of incorrectly priced stock option grants, said it expects to report sales of about $500 to $502 million for its fiscal 2009 first quarter ended Sept. 27, slightly below the consensus estimate of $504 in a Thomson Reuters survey. The company said per-share profits would now range from 19 to 22 cents, a bit below the 23 cents most analysts had expected.

The results will include an estimated $30 to $32 million in charges “primarily related to Read the rest of this entry »

Maxim Integrated Products, the Sunnyvale chip maker that had not filed financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission since May 2006 as it struggled to investigate and then account for years of incorrectly priced (i.e., backdated) options, filed six quarterly reports and three fiscal year reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday.

The company determined the total extra value given to its executives, directors, employees and others who received backdated options since fiscal 1997 — the difference between the strike price on the options based on their original grant date and the correct price based on the date they were technically granted — was Read the rest of this entry »

Maxim Integrated Products, the Sunnyvale chip maker that hasn’t filed financial reports with the Securities and Exchange Commission since May 2006 because of an investigation into its past stock option granting practices, said Monday it reached a settlement of a shareholder lawsuit over the matter.

The legal action, brought against some of the company’s current and former executive officers and directors, included no admission of “wrongdoing or fault” on their part. Such settlements almost never do.

However, Read the rest of this entry »

Nasdaq’s patience with Maxim Integrated Products finally wore out Monday when it told the Sunnyvale maker of analog chips that its stock would be delisted, starting today.

Instead, Maxim shares can now be found in the, um, illustrious Pink Sheet (new symbol: MXIM.PK), commonly regarded as home of more fly-by-night operations than Maxim, which ranks as the 35th on the Mercury News SV150 listing of the biggest public companies in Silicon Valley.

Read the rest of this entry »