General Micro-electronics(GM-e) was founded in 1963 by a number of ex-Fairchild Semiconductor employees. The company was formed to specialize in the development of high-density Metal-Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) integrated circuits. GM-e's founders left Fairchild Semiconductor because they felt that the company was not putting enough emphasis on MOS IC development.

Due to the extreme capital expense involved in setting up bleeding-edge integrated circuit manufacturing facilities, as well as difficulties with producing an extremely complex group of chips for an electronic calculator, the company ended up in financial trouble, and was sold to Philco-Ford Corporation as outlined in the news-brief presented above.

The calculator project that ended up becoming the downfall of GM-e was the design and development of a set of MOS Large-Scale Integrated Circuits, as well as the complete manufacturing of an electronic calculator under contract to Victor Comptometer (the Victor 3900)

After an extended development project that resulted in redesigns of a number of the chips, low yields for the chips in initial laboratory production, and even lower yields when the chips went into full production, there were indications that Victor Comptometer was growing wary of the problems GM-e was having with the calculator. While the small number of calculators that GM-e managed to manufacture successfully and deliver to Victor for sale were truly unprecedented technological achievements, the huge debt the company had accumulated during the project became a major issue. The majority investor in GM-e, Pyle National, began looking for a buyer to unload the company to. Philco Corp., whose previous attempt at making a name for itself in the semiconductor market blew up in its face when Fairchild introduced its planar transistor, became interested in the prospects of GM-e's line of smaller-scale MOS devices, as well as the technologies relating to the development of the large-scale IC's. A deal was struck between Pyle-National and Philco, Corp. for GM-e to be sold to Philco to the tune of $4.35 million, with an additional cash-out of around 4.8 million to pay off GM-e's outstanding loans owed to Pyle National.