Touchstone Semiconductor

About Touchstone Semiconductor

Touchstone Semiconductor Inc. was a fabless semiconductor company that designed and manufactured high-performance, low-power analog integrated circuits (ICs). Founded in March 2010 by a team of industry experts from Maxim Integrated, Linear Technology, and Analog Devices, the company was headquartered in Milpitas, California. The founding team included Brett Fox as CEO and Adolfo Garcia as VP of Marketing and Applications. The company secured $12 million in Series A funding from investors Opus Capital and Khosla Ventures.

The company's business model focused on two main areas: creating proprietary analog ICs with unique performance features and providing second-source products that were pin-compatible and identical in specification to competitors' offerings, addressing supply chain issues for hard-to-find components. Touchstone specialized in components for battery-powered and portable applications, offering products like operational amplifiers, comparators, current sense amplifiers, timers, and voltage detectors. Its products were used across various industries, including consumer electronics, industrial control, medical devices, and telecommunications.

In March 2014, after running into financial difficulties, Touchstone Semiconductor's entire product portfolio and intellectual property were acquired by Silicon Labs for $1.5 million. The acquisition added nearly 70 analog products to Silicon Labs' portfolio, complementing their existing solutions for the Internet of Things (IoT) market by enhancing energy efficiency in battery-operated systems. Silicon Labs continued to sell the Touchstone product lines under its own name following the acquisition.