Silicon Systems

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 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:
Early employees.
Early employees of Silicon Systems included: