SGS had acquired a license in 1957 to produce chips from Fairfield Semiconductor and became a major European chip manufacturer and in 1972 merged with ATES to become SGS Microelectronics. The American industry giants of Intel and Texas Instruments continued to dwarf the efforts of SGS Microelectronics, until 1987 when SGS Microelectronics merged with Thomson Semiconductors. At the time of the merger the company was known as SGS-THOMSON but took its current name to to become STMicroelectronics May 1998 following the withdrawal of Thomson SA as an owner
