fabless manufacturing

Mead advocated for the idea of Fabless manufacturing in which customers specify their design needs to fabless semiconductor companies.

It is known for inventing the field-programmable gate array (FPGA) and as the first semiconductor company with a fabless manufacturing model.

Fabless manufacturing is the design and sale of hardware devices and semiconductor chips while outsourcing the fabrication or "fab" of the devices to a specialized manufacturer called a semiconductor foundry.