MACOM's roots reach back more than 60 years, to an engineering company called Microwave Associates. By the time it filed in 2012, the brand had passed through several corporate owners and landed in Lowell, Massachusetts. Its chips handled the high-frequency signals that cell towers, fiber links, radars and cable networks depend on. Smartphones and data traffic were exploding, and every new wireless bit had to pass through analog parts like these.

Bought Back From Cobham

In March 2009 a new company bought the M/A-COM technology business and brand from Cobham, the British defense group. The buyers were led by John Ocampo, who became chairman, alongside Summit Partners. They added Mimix, a maker of gallium arsenide chips, in 2010 and the fiber-optic chip designer Optomai in 2011. The bet was that an independent MACOM, focused on analog parts, could grow faster than it had as a unit of a defense contractor.

Nineteen Dollars in Lowell

M/A-COM Technology Solutions priced at $19 a share in March 2012 and listed on the Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol MTSI. The offering totaled $114 million. At that price, the shares going to Ocampo and his affiliates were worth about $497.8 million. The company later shortened its name to MACOM and kept buying chip businesses. It still trades on Nasdaq and is based in Lowell.

Cover: Jove Casts His Thunderbolts at the Rebellious Giants, Johann Michael Rottmayr. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for thunderbolts from the sky (radio power).