Every television once needed a metal tuner can, a bulky box of parts that pulled one channel out of the air or the cable. MaxLinear shrank that job onto a single chip of standard silicon. Its radio-frequency chips went into TVs, set-top boxes, mobile TV devices and car receivers. When the Carlsbad company went public in March 2010, it was one of the few chip IPOs to brave the market after the financial crisis.

Radio in Plain Silicon

Kishore Seendripu co-founded MaxLinear in September 2003 and served as chairman, president and chief executive. Kimihiko Imura joined as a co-founder and ran semiconductor technology and operations. The team bet that radio-frequency circuits, usually built with exotic processes, could be made in cheap, standard CMOS silicon. That made tuners smaller, cheaper and easier to put on a circuit board. Its first chips went into televisions and set-top boxes.

From the NYSE to Nasdaq

MaxLinear priced its IPO at $14 a share on March 24, 2010, and listed on the New York Stock Exchange as MXL. It grew by buying other chip businesses and moved into broadband, Wi-Fi and data center connectivity. In 2021 it moved its listing from the NYSE to Nasdaq. MaxLinear is still public on Nasdaq and based in Carlsbad, California.

Cover: Charing Cross Railway Bridge, James McNeill Whistler. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a railway bridge (straight lines and signals).