MXL

Maxlinear, Inc.

A fabless chip designer that builds the systems-on-chip inside broadband gateways, Wi-Fi routers, 5G base stations, and data-center optical links, MaxLinear was founded in 2003 in Carlsbad, California, by eight semiconductor veterans including CEO Kishore Seendripu and CTO Curtis Ling. Its name blends "max" for maximum performance with "linear" for the analog signal processing at its core. Fun fact: before 2009, most of its revenue came from tiny TV-receiver chips that let Japanese mobile phones pick up digital broadcasts.