Silicon Systems Inc. (SSi) (not to be confused with SiliconSystems, Inc.) was an American semiconductor company based in Tustin, California. The company manufactured mixed-signal integrated circuits and semiconductors for telecommunications and data storage.

Company history

Silicon Systems was founded and incorporated in California on May 17, 1972 by Gene B. Potter, Ronald H. Reeder, and William E. Drobish. SSi grew to 146 employees and $10.5 million in revenue in 1980. Its initial public offering was on January 29, 1981. The company became a supplier of integrated circuits (ICs) for computer disk drives, touch-tone receivers, vehicle loop detectors, and other applications from garage door openers to descrambling satellite broadcast signals. The company was acquired by TDK Corporation in on May 15, 1989 for $200M. The company grew to an annual revenue of $400 million as of 1996. It owned wafer fabrication plants in Tustin and Santa Cruz, California, an assembly and test facility in Singapore, and design facilities in San Jose and Grass Valley, California. In 1996, Texas Instruments (TI) acquired the storage products portion of SSi in a deal worth $575 million. TDK retained the communications products business as TDK Semiconductor Corporation (TSC). In 2005, TSC was purchased by Golden Gate Capital Partners and renamed Teridian Semiconductor. In 2010, Teridian was purchased by Maxim Integrated Products for $315M in cash. The Teridian energy measurement products group was then sold to Silergy on March 18, 2016. The founders of Silicon Systems came from Scientific Data Systems. MicroSim Corporation spun off from Silicon Systems in 1984. In 1998 MicroSim was acquired by OrCAD Systems Corporation. Silicon Systems Inc. had no relation to another and more recent company named SiliconSystems, Inc. which was founded in 2003, made solid-state drives (SSDs), and was eventually acquired by Western Digital.

Early designs

Designs for integrated circuit houses

Source:

Designs for end users, with SSi supplying the completed circuits

Designs proprietary to SSi

Early employees

Early employees of Silicon Systems included: Gene Potter, July 1972 Ron Reeder, January 1973 Bill Drobish, February 1973 Curly Adams, February 1973 Mike Morley, March 1973 Robert Amneus, April 1973 Edward Bernard, May 1973 Dick Yamasaki, September 1973 Marty Jurick, September 1973 Grant Shatto, September 26, 1973 Ed Klein, January 1974 Bin Yang, March 1974 Mike Wimbrow, September 1974 Martin Harvey, March 1976 Chuck Austin, August 1976 Mike Taggart, September 1976 Bert White, December 1976 Jim Kellis, January 1977 Dick Yamasaki, September 1977 Wolfram Blume, November 1977 Steve Griggs, May 1978 Marcia McReynolds, June 1979 Dave Goff, September 1979 Charles Bourgeois, December 1980 Rhona Jordan, 1980 Tim Hyde, 1980 Jill de Guzman, January 1981 Katherine Downing, 1981 Brett Jeisy, December 1981 Cody Campbell, 1982 Sabrina Lee, 1985

Locations