ON Semiconductor Corporation (ONNN), based in Phoenix, AZ, is an original equipment manufacturer (OEM) of a broad-based semiconductor analog component product portfolio. The company was spun off from Motorola in August 1999, and went public through an IPO in May 2000. Currently, the company markets over 17,000 individual devices. The company sold approximately 28.4 billion units in 2004.

Semiconductor devices are broadly divided into three categories: analog, digital and radio frequency (RF). Analog semiconductors condition and regulate real world information such as light, temperature, speed, pressure, power and electrical currents. Digital logic semiconductors process information in only two states. Mixed-signal semiconductors combine both analog and digital technology into a single device. Typically, an analog sensor samples real world information, and then converts the input into an electronic analog signal, which is converted into a digital format for further digital processing. The analog and mixed-signal markets tend to be more varied and specialized, with customized products that have longer life cycles than those in the digital industry segment. There is an ongoing drive to decrease the number of discrete devices, lessen power requirements and shrink the size of the existing devices, which correspondingly increase performance and reliability. Consequently, a greater amount of functionality is being consolidated into increasingly smaller devices. The Gartner Group estimated that the total worldwide semiconductor market was a $219.9 billion market in 2004. The analog market component grew 29% in 2004, to a $36.4 billion market, according to In-Stat, an industry trade group. ON Semiconductor products qualify as analog components with a special emphasis in power and power management components.

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