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Genesis Microchip Inc. Business Information, Profile, and History

2150 Gold Street
Alviso
California
95002
U.S.A.

Company Perspectives

Technology is the primary driver of Genesis Microchip's leadership position in both the flat-panel TV and LCD monitor markets. Because of the breadth of its intellectual property, from the company's initial founding as well as strategic acquisitions that contributed mixed-signal integration, Faroudja video processing and DTV technologies, the company serves all of the display markets easily and cost-effectively. Our areas of technological expertise include: Scaling, Response Time Control, Advanced Color Management, Film Mode, Format Conversion, Motion Adaptive Deinterlacing, Directional Correlation Deinterlacing, Edge Enhancement, Cross-color Suppression, Noise reduction, Video Decoding, and the DisplayPort digital interconnect standard.

History of Genesis Microchip Inc.

Genesis Microchip Inc. is a leading designer, producer, and marketer of integrated circuits called display controllers that receive and process analog and digital video and graphic images for viewing on flat-panel display screens. The company's display controllers are used in an array of flat-panel display devices, such as flat-panel televisions and computer monitors. The company also is pursuing established display applications, including liquid crystal display (LCD) television, plasma television, digital cathode-ray tube televisions, digital television, and other display devices for the consumer electronics market. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, California, Genesis markets its products globally through a network of support centers in Taipei, Taiwan; Seoul, South Korea; Shenzen, China; Tokyo, Japan; and Singapore. The company operates two development sites in Toronto, Canada, and Bangalore, India.

Beginnings

Genesis Microchip Inc. began as a Canadian company in 1987 and changed its domicile to become a Delaware corporation in February 2002. The company rapidly became a success story for its innovations in display controllers for the flat-panel display markets. In 1994, Genesis introduced a new technology called Acuity that could implement image resizing in a single signal processor (DSP) chip without losing crucial pixels. Although the technology was 30 years old, it presented hurdles to implement in hardware. The key, however, rested in developing an image processing capacity that could facilitate image resizing--reducing or enlarging the size of an image--without losing the quality of the image itself. Reducing the size of an image, for example, always required eliminating pixels or lines, while enlarging an image required adding pixels. Until the early 1990s, successful image resizing necessitated up to five image processing boards, costing thousands of dollars. Genesis, however, discovered a way to provide the same capacity in a single chip through its Acuity technology, which it offered in two chip versions. The technology could facilitate image resizing without losing crucial pixels. The company developed the Acuity technology's resizing algorithms and architecture in conjunction with North Shore Laboratories of Princeton, New Jersey.

Genesis Pioneers Its Way to Growth

In 1996, Genesis and National Semiconductor Corp. teamed up to showcase a breakthrough liquid crystal display driver aimed at the growing cathode-ray tube replacement market. The two firms began providing flat-panel producers a reference design that combined Genesis's video processing and National Semiconductor's low voltage differential signaling technology. The combination provided faster transmission of sharper full-motion video images. In the following year in 1997, Genesis continued its record of innovation by introducing the gmZ1 Advanced Image Magnification chip, offering crisper graphics and video on flat-panel displays. The company claimed that the chip could resolve de-interlacing, zoom scaling, display synchronization, and overlay control problems for liquid crystal and plasma displays as well as Digital Light Processing-based projector systems, and large screen TVs. The powerful gmZ1 chip found ready acceptance by a number of producers of flat-panel displays, including Apple Computer's Studio Display monitor, a new flat-panel active matrix LCD that offered images twice as crisp and bright as those of standard cathode-ray tube monitors.

In 1998, Genesis--already a leader in imaging, digital, and graphics processing integrated circuits (ICs)--announced that it was taking a $500,000 equity position in Toronto-based digital image chip specialist, Shamrock Semiconductor. The company aimed to expand its customer base in the video and graphics market, which already included such firms as Apple Computer, CTX Opto-Electronics Corp., Hitachi, Ltd., In Focus Systems, LG Electronics, Texas Instruments, and more than 180 other companies. In 1998, Genesis introduced two new ICs, the gmZ2 and gmZ3, which were improved low cost alternatives to the industry-leading gmZ1 integrated circuit for producing high-quality graphics and video. In addition to being designed for flat-panel displays, projection systems, home theater equipment, and other applications, the new chips provided effective auto-detection and auto-configuration support. The chips also offered Genesis's ImEngine de-interlacing process, used to convert interlaced television-style video for display on non-interlaced systems, such as personal computer monitors. At the end of fiscal year 1998, Genesis reported record revenues of 248 percent over fiscal 1997 to $15.7 million. The company's success was attributed to the introduction of the ImEngine product line aimed at both the projection system market and the emerging LCD monitor market in which Genesis already had an impressive list of customers manufacturing LCD monitors.

In June 1999, Genesis completed a merger agreement with privately held Paradise Electronics, Inc., of San Jose, California, a designer and manufacturer of highly integrated mixed-mode integrated circuits for the flat panel monitor market. Under the terms of the merger, 4.5 million shares of Genesis common stock, worth about $130 million, would be exchanged for all outstanding shares and options of Paradise Electronics. Genesis saw the merger as a way to gear up for what it anticipated would be an enormous surge in the flat-monitor market in the years ahead. In this regard, the deal also would strengthen its position in the race to capture the market for next-generation LCD monitors. Already, a host of start-ups had entered the market with integrated solutions that in some cases surpassed Genesis's own offerings. Paradise provided a means to both strengthen and advance Genesis's portfolio of products and ability to serve other markets such as digital displays, HDTV, projection systems, DVD players, and other applications. With the merger, Genesis believed it was positioned to be the premiere display chip player in the evolving digital display revolution. The merger, however, ignited some controversy as Genesis president and chief operating officer Stephen Solari left the company toward the end of the negotiations.

In August 1999, the company introduced an innovative new video decoder chip--the gmD2000, designed to enhance image quality of decoded NTSC/PAL video. Genesis also announced a $1.1 million minority equity investment in privately held Techwell, Inc., of San Jose, California, a designer of video decoder integrated circuit products. Company Chairman and CEO Paul M. Russo said that the investment in Techwell would give Genesis new visibility in the consumer video electronics and television markets. In September 1999, Genesis's rapid pace of innovation led to the radical advancement of its video/graphic-processing technology with the gmZ4 integrated circuit. The new, third-generation chip further widened the image quality gap between the company and its competition. The chip was developed both to provide high visual quality and to reduce the cost of flat-panel displays, ultra-portable projection systems, home theater gear, and other pixilated display applications. In January 2000, Genesis introduced another new chip, the gmZAN1 LCD, a cost-effective, feature-loaded integrated circuit for LCD monitors.

In February 2000, Amnon Fisher was appointed as the company's new president and chief operating officer. Before joining Genesis, Amnon was senior vice president and general manager of the consumer products division at NeoMagic where he compiled a successful track record in managing the various aspects of the IC business. By April, however, Paul Russo turned over his day to day responsibilities as CEO to Amnon, in order to focus on strategic issues as a working chairman of the board of directors. With Amnon in place, the company looked forward to the next stage in targeting the high-volume markets including LCD monitors, digital CRTs, and the emerging digital video markets. Amnon joined Genesis at a propitious time as the company soon reported annual revenues of $53.3 million, a 37 percent jump from fiscal 1999. The company was profiting from its synergy with Paradise Electronics, which led to the introduction of an array of innovative new products.

In July 2000, Genesis spun off its image warp technology and business into a separate start-up firm. Genesis's initial $2 million investment enabled the company to begin operations and focus on marketing its warp technology chip, which served to digitally manipulate real-time video images while maintaining image quality and detail. By the end of fiscal 2001, Genesis's 19 percent revenue growth reflected its ability to continue expanding and solidifying its leadership in the flat-panel monitor market and other high-growth markets of digital television. The company's sustained revenue growth put it among Deloitte & Touche's fastest-growing 500 technology companies in North America.

Genesis Stumbles amid Mergers and Acquisitions

In September 2001, Genesis announced an agreement to acquire rival Sage Inc. of Milpitas, California, a maker of chips used in flat-panel televisions, computer monitors, and Internet appliances, for $241 million in stock. The merger promised to create a technology leader with a history of innovation and a portfolio of products for the rapidly growing semiconductor industry. The transaction also was anticipated to greatly expand Genesis's global reach, giving the combined company significant research and development, and service and support operations in Canada, the U.S., India, Korea, and China. Moreover, with the acquisition of Sage, Genesis's share of the flat-panel market would jump to from 50 percent to 70 percent. The acquisition was completed in February 2002 for $402 million after shareholders approved the merger and the required change in domicile from Canada to the U.S., which was a condition of the acquisition of Sage.

In March 2002, Genesis won an auction in bankruptcy court to acquire the assets of VM Labs Inc. of Mountain View, California, including all patents, trademarks, and intellectual property for $14.2 million in cash. Genesis believed that VM Labs' decoder technology would expand its product offerings in consumer electronics, especially in the DVD market. Genesis also expected to benefit from the firm's relationships with major electronic companies, including Motorola, Samsung, and Toshiba. In the same month, Genesis aggressively moved to file a patent infringement suit against Taiwan's Media Reality Technologies, Inc. (MRT), SmartASIC Inc., and Trumpion Microelectronics, Inc., in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and later with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC). In the suit, Genesis sought monetary damages and a permanent injunction barring the companies from producing, using, importing, or selling the allegedly infringing products in the United States. MRT quickly responded to the legal action in April by suing Genesis in federal court in San Francisco seeking a declaratory judgment that it was not infringing on Genesis's patent. The complaint also charged that Genesis misappropriated confidential trade secrets from MRT and that Genesis used the trade secrets to interfere with its business operations, resulting in lost revenues. In August 2004, the ITC ruled that the companies had infringed on Genesis's U.S. patent titled "Method and Apparatus for Upscaling an Image in both Horizontal and Vertical Directions." With the ruling, the ITC issued an exclusionary order barring the import of their display controllers into the U.S., in addition to LCD monitors and boards containing these products.

In June 2002, Genesis anticipated that its first quarter 2003 revenues would range from $41 million to $43 million, compared to previous estimates of $60 million. The company attributed the decline in revenues to a drop in orders, stemming from losing business to competitors and panel manufacturing constraints that produced excess inventories. As demand for its chips began to slide, the company adopted a shareholder rights plan to ward off potential investors from acquiring significant shares of its common stock.

The company's sliding revenues and stock price, however, did not stop it from signing a March 2003 deal to acquire rival Pixelworks for about $584 million in stock. Under the terms of the agreement, the companies would finalize the deal as a reverse merger, with Pixelworks issuing 2.3366 shares of stock for each share of Genesis. The deal would give Genesis shareholders 62.5 percent of the new company with Pixelworks shareholders getting 37.5 percent. With the acquisition, Genesis added Pixelworks' 75 percent market share of the world's projector ICs to its own leading 60 percent share of LCD monitor chips. Because the two companies had been investing heavily in advanced television chips, the merger would enable the combined firms to better compete with major consumer electronics players such as Sony Corp. and Samsung Electronics Company Ltd., which developed their own chips.

The transaction, however, drew an antitrust review by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). With the FTC's antitrust review underway, in July 2003, Genesis was ordered by a federal court in Virginia to uphold a memorandum of understanding with Silicon Image, a company that owned patents to part of a new display interface that gained rapid acceptance from the industry's major consumer electronics manufacturers. The memorandum of understanding settled a patent infringement dispute and directed Genesis to pay for access to Digital Visual Interface (DVI) and High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) technologies owned by Silicon Image. The patent licensing dispute forced the ouster of Genesis chairman and chief executive James Donegan, who had verbally agreed to the MoU, allegedly without the authorization of the board, to resolve a patent lawsuit filed by Silicon Image. With few options other than to pay for the rights to a display interface that was on the verge of dominating the media industry, analysts predicted that Genesis' financial position would be considerably weakened. As a result, the stocks of both Genesis and Pixelworks began selling off as investors lost faith in the merger. In August 2003, Genesis and Pixelworks jointly announced an agreement to terminate the proposed merger in the interests of their respective shareholders.

With the termination of the merger, the company's hopes for immediately strengthening its market share in its core businesses collapsed. Genesis was facing intense competition and pricing pressures in its critical LCD monitor business, which declined by 11 percent in its fiscal 2004 first quarter. Indeed, a quarter of profit losses, a ruined merger, brutal price erosion, the ousting of the company's chief executive, and the rise of a number of competitors seemed to cast a shadow over Genesis's record of success. Still, the company had much going for it, including leadership in the fast-growing market for LCD-monitor controller ICs and a strong position in the rapidly expanding market for LCD TV chips.

Genesis Regains Growth and Profitability

By the beginning of 2004, the company seemed to be putting its difficulties behind it and trying to position itself to take advantage of the rapidly growing market for LCDs in desktop personal computers and televisions. In July 2004, Genesis relocated its Taipei offices into larger facilities, adding engineers and sales staff. In addition, in November, 2004, Genesis announced the appointment of Elias (Elie) Antoun as its new president and chief executive officer. Antoun brought more than 20 years of semiconductor and consumer electronics experience to Genesis. His prior experience included serving as president and chief executive officer of both Pixim, Inc., an imaging solution provider for the video surveillance market, and MediaQ Incorporated, a mobile handheld graphics IC company. He also had held a variety of executive positions with LSI Logic Corporation.

In June 2005, Genesis signed a strategic licensing agreement with Meridian Audio Limited, a United Kingdom-based producer of high-end audio, video, and home theater systems and components. The agreement gave Meridian rights to integrate, manufacture, and distribute home theater solutions under Genesis's Faroudja brand name as part of Meridian's audio/video line of products. Under the terms of the agreement, Genesis would cease the production and distribution of its advanced Faroudja home theatre solutions, but would continue to develop advanced video processing technologies with Meridian for its Faroudja-based products. A sign that Genesis was back to profitability came with record revenues of $59.8 million for the first quarter of fiscal 2006. The company's profitable quarter stemmed from significant design achievements in both the LCD monitor and flat-panel TV markets. With continued improvement in the marketing of its products on a worldwide basis, in September 2005, Genesis opened a new regional sales and engineering facility in Singapore in close proximity to key customers, including Dell, Philips, TTE, and Toshiba. According to the company, the facility promised to support its local customer base as well as diversify its supply chain and provide new business opportunities in emerging markets such as Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Genesis closed out fiscal 2006 with a 32 percent surge in total revenue to $269.5 million compared to $204.1 million for fiscal 2005. The company attributed the financial results to a robust 81 percent growth in flat-panel revenues and a major improvement in earnings.

Principal Competitors

Pixelworks Inc.; Silicon Image Inc.; STMicroelectronics N.V.

Related information about Genesis

otheruses

Genesis (, Greek: ???????, having the meanings of "birth", "creation", "cause", "beginning", "source" and "origin") is the first book of the Torah, the first book of the Tanakh and also the first book of the Christian Old Testament. As Jewish tradition considers it to have been written by Moses, it is sometimes also called The First Book of Moses. Fairly common among Abrahamic followers is the belief that the book was Divinely Inspired (written by God through a human), and is therefore Infallible.

In Hebrew, it is called ?????? This is in line with the pattern of naming the other four books of the Pentateuch.

Introduction

Genesis begins by describing God's creation of the world, Adam and Eve and their banishment from the Garden of Eden, the story of Cain and Abel, and the story of Noah and the great flood.

Chapter twelve begins with the call of Abram (later Abraham) and his then barren wife Sarai (later Sarah) from Ur (probably in Babylonia) to Canaan (Palestine). It contains the record of Abraham's acceptance by God, and of God's promise to him that through his seed all people on earth would be blessed (22:3). The book records the doings of his son Isaac, and grandsons, Esau and Jacob (known as Israel), as well as their families. It is the composition of a writer (or set of writers, see documentary hypothesis), who has recounted the traditions of the Israelites, combining them into a uniform work, while preserving the textual and formal peculiarities incident to their difference in origin and mode of transmission. it is an article of Orthodox Jewish faith that the book was dictated, in its entirety, by God to Moses on Mount Sinai. For a number of reasons, this view is no longer accepted by many biblical scholars and liberal Protestants. Instead, they accept a theory whose roots are based on cultural evolution and philosophical naturalism which teaches that the text of Genesis as we see it today was redacted together around 440 BC from earlier sources, namely the Sumerians.

Use of the literal reading to date creation

Based on the genealogies in Genesis and later parts of the Bible, both religious Jews and Christians have independently worked backwards to estimate the time of the Creation of the world. This approach suggests Creation was around the beginning of the 4th millennium BC. This dating is based on an entirely literal reading of the creation account: that the six days in which God created the heavens and the earth were 24-hour days, that Adam, Eve, and the Garden of Eden existed, and that a complete trace of events from Creation to a historically verifiable date is listed in the Biblical account.

Many scholars have questioned the accuracy of the historical account, and the use of such a retracing of the events presented in Genesis to date human history on earth has been rejected by the great majority of historians and archaeologists. Furthermore, independent scientific evidence from fields as diverse as cosmology, geology and biology is entirely incompatible with the timeline described in Genesis (e.g. the age of the Earth is estimated as more than 4 billion years). This subject is further discussed in The Bible and history and Young Earth creationism. Because a literal reading of Genesis can be seen to conflict with widely accepted scientific theories such as the Big Bang and common descent, many believers view the creation narratives presented in Genesis as an allegory; however the non-literal view of creation did not begin with Charles Darwin, but rather predated him by hundreds of years.

Those who believe that the first eleven chapters are literal argue that the style of writing shares a literary style with other biblical writing often considered to be historical in nature and the text nowhere indicates that it is meant as anything other than a literal account . Such analyses, along with a strong tradition of Biblical inerrancy, has led a significant number of religious and scientific individuals and organisations to reject man's theoretical accounts of the origin of life and the universe in favour of Young-Earth creationism or YEC. Those holding to the view of YEC, use the Genesis account of creation to provide alternative explanations to those of modern science on subjects including the origin of the universe, life and humankind.

There are also growing number of Christians and Jews who argue that the beginning ?of ?Genesis is not an account of the physical creation of the world; Saint Augustine took this view in The Literal Meaning of Genesis, but strongly rejected the suggestion that it represented an allegory;

Christian views

There are numerous references to Genesis in the New Testament. While none of these references explicitly state an author for Genesis there are several places which attribute the books of the law (Torah) to Moses (Mark 12:19, 26; Luke 24:27).

The author of the gospel of John uses language similar to that in Genesis 1 when personifying the speech of God as the eternal Logos (Greek: ????? "reason", "word", "speech"), that is the origin of all things "with God", and "was God", and "became flesh and tabernacled among us". Many Christians interpret this as an example of apostolic teaching of the doctrine of the Trinity and the deity of Christ; it is primarily on the strength of John's testimony that Christians ascribe personality to the creative speech of God, and identify that personality with Jesus (Hebrews 1:2,3, Colossians 1:16,17 are among other Biblical sources for the belief).

In addition to references to Genesis in the New Testament, Christian theologians (from the earliest Patristics to modern-day writers) have endlessly interpreted and debated the stories and images in Genesis, using a myriad of methods and theological perspectives.

Islamic views

The Islamic view rejectswww.quranicstudies.com/article22.html the Biblical account of Lot offering his daughters to be gang-raped (Genesis 19:8)www.answering-christianity.com/bassam_zawadi/prophet_lots_offering.htm and later impregnating both of them due to excessive alcohol consumption (Genesis 19:30-36). God has called all objects and living beings into existence by his word.

The universe when created was, in the judgment of God, good. Genesis expresses an optimistic satisfaction and pleasure in the world.
God as a personal being, referred to in anthropomorphic and anthropopathic terms. God may appear and speak to mankind.
Genesis gives no philosophically rigorous definition of God; God is treated exclusively with reference to his dealings with the world and with man.
Humankind is the crown of Creation, and has been made in God's image.
All people are descended from Adam and Eve; man must include God's creatures in the respect that it demands in general, by not exploiting them for his own selfish uses.
God is presented as being the sole creator of nature, and as existing outside of it and beyond it.
Some historians believe Genesis to be a more recent example of monotheistic belief than Zoroastrianism, interpreting the commandment "have no other gods before me" as an artifact of early henotheism among the Jews -- i.e., as evidence that the Hebrews were not to worship the gods of other peoples, but only their own tribal god. On the other hand, Genesis, in its present form, purports to give a record of beliefs prior to any surviving religious texts, describing the worship of other gods and local deities as a gradual development among the nations, who departed from original monotheism.
God created an eternal, unbreakable covenant with all mankind at the time of Noah; this is known as the Noachide covenant. This universal concern with all mankind is paralleled by a second covenant made to the descendants of Abraham in particular, through his son Isaac, in which their descendants will be chosen to have a special destiny.
The Jewish people are chosen to be in a special covenant with God;

The article on Biblical cosmology discusses the Bible's view of the cosmos, much of which derives from descriptions in Genesis.

Summary

Creation

The creation narrative in Genesis can be split into two sections - the first section starts with an account of the Creation of the universe by God, which occurs in six days, the second section is more human-oriented, and less concerned with explaining how the Earth, its creatures and its features came to exist as they are today.

Within the first chapter, in an order as written in the Bible: On the first day, God created heaven and Earth. On the second day, God created the firmament of heaven. On the sixth day, God created land animals before creating man.

Chapter two mentions the seventh day of creation, the Sabbath, where God rested and sanctified the day. The seventh day is generally not regarded as a day inside the context of biblical creationism.

Some may wonder whether it was this chapter of the Hebrew Bible that gives us our seven-day week, and may further speculate about the importance of the number seven. However, research into the origin of the week tells us that it was widely spread throughout the ancient world, so widely that apart from claims such as Genesis, its origins cannot be determined with certainty.

The second section of the creation narrative explains that the earth was lifeless, how God brought moisture to the soil and how man was formed from the dust (Adam translates from Hebrew to mean 'Red Earth').

Adam and Eve

God formed Adam out of earth ("adamah"), and set him in the Garden of Eden, to watch over it. Adam is allowed to eat of all the fruit within it, except that of the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil". Of this tree, God tells them "thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die."

God then brings all the animals to Adam (2:19). When Adam realizes this, God then puts him into a deep sleep, takes a rib from his side, and from it forms a woman (called later "Eve"), to be his companion (his helpmate).

Later, starting in verse 3:1, Eve was convinced by a talking serpent to eat of the forbidden fruit. The serpent convinces her by saying "Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." In 3:3, she adds to what God said: "neither shall ye touch it", which God never told Adam. This turning from God is also considered the original sin in traditional Christian interpretation. As punishment, the ground is cursed, Adam and Eve become mortal (because they no longer have access to the Tree of Life), and they are driven out of the garden. The entrance to the garden is then guarded by cherubim with a flaming sword.

Adam and Eve initially have two sons named, Cain and Abel. There is a Chiastic structure in the first few verses relating Cain to Abel. He finally settles in the land of Nod.

Note: the stories of Adam and Eve and Cain and Abel also appear in the Qur'an (see Similarities between the Bible and the Qur'an).

From Adam to Noah

Cain, the son of Adam, builds the first known city in the Bible and calls it after the name of his son, Enoch (Genesis 4:17). Lamech's sons are the first dwellers in tents and owners of herds (Genesis 4:20, Jabal is called the "father of such as dwell in tents"), and they are the earliest inventors of musical instruments (Genesis 4:21) and workers in brass and iron (Genesis 4:22). These descendants of Cain know nothing about God (Genesis 4:16).

Another son of Adam, Seth, has in the meantime been born to Adam and Eve in place of the slain Abel (Genesis 4:25). The tenth in regular descent is Noah (Genesis 5:1-29). In line with most of the other biblical characters born before the flood whose ages are provided, Adam lived until the age of 930 (Genesis 5:5).

Chapter 5 provides a genealogy of descendants of Adam till Noah:

Noah and the great flood

In Genesis chapter 6, verse 2, the "sons of God" took "daughters of men" to be their wives. Giants - the Nephilim and Gibborim - live on Earth among men. He selects one man, Noah, to survive, as Noah is a righteous man. God commands Noah to build an Ark, and to take on it his family and representatives of the animals. The world is then destroyed by a cataclysmic Flood, after which God enters into a covenant with Noah and his descendants, the entire human race, promising never again to destroy mankind in this way. His son Ham sees Noah's nakedness, who tells his brothers Shem and Japheth; When Noah awakes he places a curse on Ham's son Canaan, saying that he and all his descendents shall henceforce be slaves to his sons Shem and Japheth. The dispersion of humanity into separate races and nations is described in the story of the Tower of Babel. A genealogy is given of Shem's descendants.

Note: the story of Noah also appears in the Qur'an (see Similarities between the Bible and the Qur'an).

Abram and Sarai

Terah, who lives at Ur of the Chaldees, has three sons, Abram, Nahor, and Haran. Haran's son is Lot. Nahor is married to Milcah, and Abram to Sarai, who has no children. Here God appears to him and promises that the land shall become the property of his descendants.

Abram is forced by a famine to leave the country and go to Egypt. God smites the King with a disease, which the King recognizes as a sign from God; Returning with his warband after rescuing Lot and his clan, Abram is met by Melchizedek, the king and high priest of Salem (Jerusalem), who blesses him, and in return Abram gives him a tithe of his booty, refusing his share of the same.

Hagar and Ishmael

Sarai is childless, so Sarai and Abram decide that they will produce an heir for Abram through his Egyptian handmaiden, Hagar. Abram takes her as a concubine and has a child with her, Ishmael. God again appears to Abram, and enters into a personal covenant with him securing Abram's future: God promises him a numerous progeny, changes his name to "Abraham" and that of Sarai to "Sarah," and institutes the circumcision of all males as an eternal sign of the covenant.

Sodom and Gomorrah

God sends Abraham three angels, whom Abraham receives hospitably. Abraham also hears that God's messengers intend to execute judgment upon the wicked inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah, whereupon he intercedes for the sinners, and endeavors to have their fate set aside. Having thus shown that they have deserved their fate, Sodom and Gomorrah are destroyed by fire-and-brimstone. Lot's incestuous relationship with his daughters, which resulted in the births of Ammon and Moab, is also described. He desists on being warned by God.

Note: the story of Lot and Sodom and Gomorrah also appears in the Qur'an (see Similarities between the Bible and the Qur'an).

The birth of Isaac

At last the long-expected son is born, and receives the name of "Isaac" (Itzhak: "will laugh" in Hebrew). At Sarah's insistence Ishmael together with his mother Hagar is driven out of the house. Abraham, during the banquet that he gives in honor of Isaac's birth, enters into a covenant with Abimelech, who confirms his right to the well Beer-sheba.

The story of Isaac also appears in the Qur'an (see Similarities between the Bible and the Qur'an).

The near sacrifice of Isaac

Now that Abraham seems to have all his desires fulfilled, having even provided for the future of his son, God subjects him to the greatest trial of his faith by demanding Isaac as a sacrifice. On the death of Sarah, Abraham acquires Machpelah for a family tomb. and he dies in a prosperous old age.

Note: the story of the sacrifice also appears in the Qur'an (see Similarities between the Bible and the Qur'an).

Esau and Jacob

After being married for twenty years Rebekah has twins by Isaac: Esau, who becomes a hunter, and Jacob (Ya'akov: "will follow"), who becomes a herdsman. While sleeping, a being (variously regarded as God, an angel, or a man), appears to Jacob and wrestles with him. The mysterious one pleads to be released before daybreak, but Jacob refuses to release the being until he agrees and announces to Jacob that he shall bear the name "Israel," which means "one who wrestled with God" and is freed.

The meeting with Esau proves a friendly one, and the brothers separate reconciled. Jacob settles at Shechem. His sons Simeon and Levi take vengeance on the city of Shechem, whose prince has raped their sister Dinah. On the road from Bethel, Rachel gives birth to a son, Benjamin, and dies.

Joseph the dreamer

Joseph, Jacob's favorite son, is hated by his brothers on account of his dreams prognosticating his future dominion, and on the advice of Judah is secretly sold to a caravan of Ishmaelitic merchants going to Egypt. Pharaoh receives them amicably and assigns to them the land of Goshen (xlvi.-xlvii.).

References

also:

Dr. Cassuto, "Genesis Commentary" (A Jewish commentary.)
Henry M. (A scholarly Jewish commentary employing traditional sources.)
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI), In the Beginning.

Chronology

Key Dates
1987 Genesis is founded in Canada.
1998 The company takes a $500,000 equity position in Shamrock Semiconductor.
1999 Genesis makes a $1.1 million minority investment in Techwell Inc.
1999 Genesis acquires Paradise Electronics, Inc.
2001 Genesis acquires Sage Inc. for $241 million in stock.
2002 The company is incorporated in the U.S. and acquires the assets of VM Labs Inc. for $14.2 million in cash.
2003 Genesis and rival Pixelworks call off their proposed merger; Genesis loses a patent infringement suit to Silicon Image.
2004 The company relocates its Taipei offices to larger facilities.

Additional topics

Company HistoryElectrical Appliances & Electronic Components

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