SESCOSEM Gold Bonded Germanium Diode

 

Cosem (CSF) created a manufacturing facility in St Egreve (Grenoble) in 1950. By 1964 it was producing many millions of diodes and transistors per year, employing 1500 people. In 1969 the French Government merged Cosem (CSF) with Sesco (Thomson). Thomson was another French semiconductor manufacturer, established in the early 1960s to manufacture transistors. 

In time Thomson-CSF's microelectronics interests would merge with Italian SGS to form SGS Thomson, later ST Microelectronics.

The St Egreve facility still exists as Teledyne e2v, however the fab is no longer there, having ceased wafer production when it was Atmel. 

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