The company's quarterly results were helped by a 47 percent increase in sales from the microelectronics division.

In 1985, General Instrument spun off their microelectronics division and the new ownership cancelled almost everything - which by this time was mostly out-of-date.

The microelectronics division, with total revenues of $1.9 billion, comprises five groups of which the semiconductor business is the largest.

One of the few areas of explosive sales growth was the company's microelectronics division, which provides chips to the fast-growing computer and video games market.

His father retired as an engineering manager in Allentown with the microelectronics division of AT&T.

Lucent has a microelectronics division that competes, and Nortel is a competitor to a lesser degree.

And eliminating the losses from the shut-down installations in the microelectronics division may have improved profit by 5 cents a share more in the quarter.

Lucent also plans to spin off its microelectronics division.

Diba will become a new Sun business unit, the Consumer Technologies Group, within the company's microelectronics division.

The company was founded in 1987 when General Instrument spun off its microelectronics division as a wholly owned subsidiary.