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Realtek

Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company

Layered newspapers, civic records and oral-history reels arranged as chronological evidence
History and societyInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 7, 2026
Entity authorityQ619364
Source-derived summary

Realtek Semiconductor Corp. (Chinese: 瑞昱半導體股份有限公司; pinyin: Ruìyù Bàndǎotǐ Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī) is a Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company situated in the Hsinchu Science Park, Hsinchu, Taiwan. Realtek was founded in October 1987 and subsequently listed on the Taiwan Stock Exchange in 1998. Realtek has manufactured and sold a variety of microchips globally. Its product lines broadly fall into three categories: communications network ICs, computer peripheral ICs, and multimedia ICs. As of 2019, Realtek employs 5,000 people, of whom 78% work in research and development.

History

Avance Logic

Avance Logic, Inc. was a hardware manufacturer founded in 1991 in Fremont, California, and was most recently headquartered in San Jose, California. Avance Logic focused particularly on the development of low-cost, highly integrated electronic components for OEM manufacturers and was active in the areas of 2D graphics and audio. A 3D accelerator was developed in the mid-1990s, but it was not widely used.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Realtek” as taiwanese fabless semiconductor company. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Realtek, Taiwanese and fabless.

Editorial reviewMost valuable as an event-and-institution map that identifies actors, dates and record creators for deeper historical inquiry. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1987, 1998, 2019, 1991—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1987-10. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Realtek, Taiwanese and fabless providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Realtek”, the useful work is to connect “taiwanese fabless semiconductor company” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Chronology, provenance and viewpoint should be read together before a broad social or political interpretation is accepted. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 7, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q619364. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 3 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1987, 1998, 2019 and 1991.

Critical limits

Institutional narratives can privilege the records that survived while minimizing voices that were never formally collected. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Compare institutional narratives with records created by participants and affected communities. Dates and formal titles are useful anchors, but not substitutes for context.

Best used for
  • Event chronology
  • Institutional context
  • Locating named record creators
Verify next

Contemporary correspondence, government or organizational records, oral histories and cited historical scholarship.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Realtek”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Realtek primary sources, Realtek archive and Realtek research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Realtek”?
  2. What chronology connects this entry to wider political or social change?
  3. Which voices are present, absent or mediated by the institution?
Subject index

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Realtek” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.