The first annual symposium of the IEEE Circuit Society was held in Miami Beach, Florida, in December 1968. Prior to that the Circuit Theory Group had co-sponsored (apparently without financial involvement) several meetings in the Circuit Theory field: the Midwest Symposium on Circuit Theory, the Allerton Conference on Circuit Theory, etc. A decision was taken to concentrate on supporting only one event per year soon after the Miami Beach event.

The conference went international from the very early days - a characteristic of the Circuit Theory Group. This can be judged from the decision to hold the 4th edition of the conference in London, England as early as 1971. A decision in principle to do so must have been taken no later than 1969.

Although the Society has sponsored and co-sponsored many different series of conferences and continues to do so, the primary annual conferences is the International Symposium on Circuits and Systems (ISCAS).

The following list gives the date, location and general chair(s) of ISCAS since its inception: