Every laptop needs dozens of tiny switches to turn battery power into the exact voltages its chips want. Alpha and Omega Semiconductor built a business on those parts, called power MOSFETs. The company designed them in Sunnyvale, had the wafers made at outside foundries, and packaged the chips in its own plant in Shanghai. When it went public in April 2010, the electronics industry was climbing back from the recession, and AOS had just swung to a profit.

Silicon Valley Design, Shanghai Packaging

Mike Chang founded the company, which was incorporated in Bermuda in September 2000, and he served as its CEO. AOS ran its research and U.S. sales from Sunnyvale. It did not own a wafer fab. Instead, it ran its own MOSFET processes at partner foundries and kept packaging in-house in Shanghai. The bet was that owning the process and the package, without owning a fab, would let a small company win on cost and speed.

From First to Last Volt

AOS priced its IPO at $18 a share in April 2010 and listed on Nasdaq as AOSL. It later changed its mind about fabs. In 2012 it bought a wafer fab in Hillsboro, Oregon, and in 2016 it formed a joint venture to build a plant in Chongqing, China. Its chips went into PCs, phones, servers and home appliances. Alpha and Omega Semiconductor still trades on Nasdaq.

Cover: The Turbine, Power-House, New York City, Lewis Wickes Hine. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a turbine in a power house (power electronics).