Teradyne – Company Overview

Located in North Reading, Massachusetts, Teradyne is a supplier and developer of automatic test equipment for a number of large companies. The Semiconductor Test and Systems Test Group offers their services to a number of customers, including high profile companies such as Intel, Samsung, and IBM.

The name Teradyne was chosen because it represented a forceful presence at least according to the founders. A Teradyne is one billion dynes which is the equivalent of ten meganewtons or nearly 2.248 million pounds of force.

Teradyne History

Founded by 1960 by Nick DeWolf and Alex d’Arbeloff who were classmates at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) over a decade earlier, the company itself began in a small, rented space above a hotdog stand in downtown Boston.

A year after they were founded, Teradyne sold its first diode tester to Raytheon. Success came quickly to the company after that and today Teradyne runs major facilities in places like the following:

–       Agoura Hills, California

–       Fridley, Minnesota

–       Buffalo Grove, Illinois

–       North Reading, Massachusetts

The company has also set up locations in Costa Rica, The Philippines, and other places around the world. The reach of the company has proved to be extraordinary thanks in large part to the need in which they have fulfilled in their particular industry.

For the most part, d’Arbeloff was President and CEO of Teradyne for a considerable period of time until his retirement. He was replaced by George Charmillard, then Mike Bradley, and in 2014 Mark Jagiela took over the duties of President and CEO.

Although the company’s rise has been meteoric, there have been setbacks at time which have had a dramatic effect. Most notably in 2001 when Teradyne went through a period of layoffs in response to the tech bubble collapse which shook the tech industry. By 2006, the company had sold its property in the Boston area and had consolidated to North Reading. In addition, the company also sold the Teradyne Connection System division in order to raise cash and compete effectively with others in their industry, including Eagle Test Systems, Advantest, and Verigy.

Cutting costs and laying off employees managed to shift the fortunes of the company which had previously been expanding into areas outside its immediate industry. By cutting back the idea was to increase overall profitability through fewer expenditures. However, the acquisition of Nextest Systems in December, 2007 allowed Teradyne to expand into the test market for flash memory devices. The following year, the company managed to purchase one of its competitors, Eagle Test Systems.

Teradyne Today

Today, the company has managed to recover from the tech bubble burst at the turn of the 21^st century and years of layoffs and reconfiguring its company has led to a renewal of its core principles. In addition, Teradyne has now obtained well over 2,000 patents around the world thanks primarily to the research and development divisions in the US. However, some of the patents it has obtained have been through acquisition of companies like Eagle Test Systems and LitePoint.