The cable between your TV and your game console owes a lot to Silicon Image. In 1999 the Cupertino company sold chips built on PanelLink, its technology for sending a picture digitally from a computer to a flat-panel screen. Most monitors then were bulky glass tubes driven by analog signals. When Silicon Image went public in October 1999, flat screens were expensive and rare. The company was betting they would take over, and that every one would need a digital connection.

From PanelLink to HDMI

David Lee founded Silicon Image in 1995 and led it as chief executive through the IPO. PanelLink became the basis of DVI, the digital standard for computer monitors. Silicon Image then joined with TV makers to create HDMI, which carried high-definition video and audio over one cable to TVs. It sold chips that used these standards and earned licensing fees from other makers who adopted them.

Sold to Lattice

Silicon Image priced its IPO at $12 a share in October 1999 on Nasdaq. HDMI became the standard plug on TVs, players and consoles. As chips that handled HDMI became cheaper and more common, Silicon Image looked for new growth in wireless video and mobile links. In 2015 Lattice Semiconductor bought the company in a cash tender offer, and Silicon Image's shares stopped trading in March 2015.

Cover: Tower at Lacock, William Henry Fox Talbot. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for one of the first photographs (the making of an image).