PMC-Sierra was a global fabless semiconductor company with offices worldwide that developed and sold semiconductor devices into the storage, communications, optical networking, printing, and embedded computing marketplaces. On January 15, 2016, Microsemi Corporation completed acquisition of PMC-Sierra through Microsemi's subsidiary Lois Acquisition. History Sierra Semiconductor was founded in 1984 in San Jose, California by James Diller. It received funding on January 11, 1984 from Sequoia Capital, and went public in 1991. Pacific Microelectronics Centre (PMC) in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, was spun off from Microtel Pacific Research (the research arm of BC TEL at the time) to develop Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) and later SONET integrated circuits (chips). With investment from Sierra Semiconductor, PMC was established in 1992 as a private company focused on providing networking semiconductors, and became a wholly owned, independently operated subsidiary of Sierra Semiconductor in 1994. Microtel is a part of Verizon Communications. In 1995, using ideas from UBC Electrical Engineering students, PMC revolutionized the optical networking chipset market with the first OC-12 (622 Mbit/s) S/UNI transceiver chips. This circuit-design breakthrough put the company 3 years ahead of Bell Labs in its optical transceiver development. In August 1996, Sierra Semiconductor announced its decision to exit the personal computer modem chipset business, to restructure its other non-networking products and focus on its networking products. 150 employees were made redundant. In late 1996, it acquired Bipolar Integrated Technology in Beaverton, Oregon, for about $10 million to enter the Ethernet business. The headquarters was moved to Burnaby, and in June 1997, PMC Sierra overtook its parent, Sierra Semiconductor, changing its name to PMC-Sierra. It acquired Integrated Telecom Technology Inc., San Jose, for $55 million in cash and stock in 1998. Between 2001 and 2015 the company had multiple rounds of layoffs. In 2001, 350 employees, or 24% of total workforce, were laid off. Then in January 2003, 176 employees were laid off and in June 2005, 89 employees were laid off. In August 2006, 30 to 40 employees were laid off. In 2007 two rounds of layoffs happened, first in March 2007, 175 employees were laid off and then in December 2007, 18 employees were laid off. In July 2015, roughly 200 employees were laid off as part of a restructuring measure. In May 2006, PMC-Sierra acquired Passave, Inc., a developer of system-on-chip semiconductors for the fiber to the home access market in a stock-for-stock transaction valued at approximately