There are 7,400 PCs in the company, including 2,000 at corporate headquarters. Communication hardware comes from Bay Networks, Nortel, Nextlink, and Cirent. The company also supports Palm Pilots and laptops. As Seif says, "We are in Silicon Valley. Everyone who walks in comes in with a new gadget."

The recent implementation of Ariba is a representative project for IS. Twelve to fifteen staff members mapped business needs with the system's capabilities, using a structured design approach over a ten-week period. New technologies being investigated include wireless connectivity, combining voice and data networks, and design collaboration. Says Seif, "We want our customers' engineers to be able to use National's intellectual property to put a new product together, design it on a chip, and then we will manufacture it on their behalf."

National pays the majority of costs for medical, dental, and vision insurance, and offers a range of HMO and point-of-service plans. The company pays for life insurance for employees and business travel accident insurance. Supplemental life insurance and long- and short-term disability insurance are available. National observes 11 holidays a year. Employees earn three weeks of vacation to start, increasing to four weeks after ten years. Employees get their birthday off. Coffee is free. The company contributes to employees' 401(k) plans and to a profit-sharing program when it meets performance goals. Employees may purchase stock at a 15 percent discount. The company organizes volunteer opportunities and matches employee contributions to schools, as well as offering cash contributions to organizations where employees volunteer their time. The company offers cash awards to employees who earn patents. They offer 100 percent tuition reimbursement and a scholarship program for employees' children. There is a company credit union and discounts on tickets to local amusement parks, such as Disneyland. The company offers employees onsite services that include dental appointments, car wash and oil changes, and laundry and dry cleaning pick-up and delivery.

There is an on-site gym, with personal fitness trainers available for a small fee, as well as exercise classes and on-site massages. The company park has soccer and baseball fields, volleyball and basketball courts, a picnic area, jogging trail, fountains, a lake, and an amphitheater. Social activities include an annual summer picnic (Dana Carvey was a featured entertainer at the Year 2000 picnic) and a winter holiday dinner. Company-sponsored sports teams include golf, softball, bowling, skiing, running, tennis, and white water rafting. The semiconductor business is a cyclical industry and National has had layoffs. They offer affected employees a severance package based on length of service with the company and provide outplacement services.

In the 1980s, National introduced the first speech synthesizer and launched the fastest VLSI graphics engine in the industry. Its microprocessor was integrated into laser printers, and the company became the largest supplier of Ethernet controller chips. By the 1990s, its coding/decoding (codec) device was being used on approximately 200 million telephones and it partnered with Energizer Power Systems to develop "smart" batteries for notebook computers and cordless power tools. In 1999, National introduced the first high performance color scanner on a chip and launched WebPAD at COMDEX. WebPAD is a portable touchscreen wireless Internet-access device. National competes on the depth of its intellectual property portfolio and experience in designing custom and mass-market devices. Competitors include Texas Instruments, STMicroelectronics, Analog Devices, Linear Technology, and Maxim.

Job titles include: Entry-level Programmer, Intermediate, Staff, Principal, and Member of the Technical Staff. There are similar paths for Analysts, Administrators, Network Engineers, and Factory Systems Engineers. There is a dual technical/management career path, with Entry-level, Intermediate, and Senior Managers. The executive level includes Manager, Director, and Vice President. The company hired 26 technical professionals in IS in the last year, including 14 for entry-level positions.

Top schools for recruiting entry-level candidates include Cal State Hayward, San Jose State, and Santa Clara. The company expects to hire between 10 technical professionals in the next year, including three for entry-level positions. Candidates are found through college recruiting (21 percent), employee referrals (17 percent; there is a bonus), internal job postings (15 percent), unsolicited resumes (13 percent), online recruiting (12 percent; monster.com, jobtrak.com), temp-to-hire contractors (12 percent), re-hires (3 percent), job fairs (3 percent), employment agencies (2 percent), and advertisements (2 percent).