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Issue 24
December 6, 2011
Brett Fox
Touchstone
Semiconductor, Inc.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
4
Brett Fox
Touchstone Semiconductor, Inc.
Interview with Brett Fox - President and CEO
8
Featured Products
10
Software and Hardware Platform Enable
Over One TeraFlop Processing Rates
BY
MICHAEL PARKER
WITH ALTERA
An introduction to a processing platform that provides the advantages of both floating point and
fixed point processing.
14
System Perspective on Specifying
Electronic Power Supplies:Load
Characterization
BY
BOB STOWE
WITH TRUE POWER RESEARCH
Learn about the effect of the load when specifying a power supply.
17
RTZ - Return to Zero Comic
3
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INTERVIEW
Brett Fox
Touchstone Semiconductor, Inc.
How did Touchstone come
about?
The idea for this company has been
floating around with me for many
years, actually since I left Maxim in
early 2000. Back then was not the
right time to start a company like
Touchstone. At the time, the funding
was going toward businesses that
were one-product, one-customer
type models. VCs could make an
investment and it could quickly turn
into money. We were trying to build
a real company. When I left Micrel
in 2005 I started to think about what
I wanted to do. I was fortunate
enough to know some people in
venture capital. Crosslink Capital, a
VC firm in San Francisco, asked me
to be an Entrepreneur in Residence
(EIR), which is a pretty cool job.
You essentially are given a salary,
an office, and a business card. You
get to sit in on their meetings and
see the inner workings of how a
venture capital firm works. They
will help you look at companies in
your space, and if you want to start
a company, they will help you do
that. The real genesis of Touchstone
started there. I started to work on
finding a team of people, flushing
out the business plan more, making
contacts and all those types of
things. When I left Crosslink in early
2008, Touchstone was formed, and
I started raising money in earnest.
What was the most
challenging aspect of starting
Touchstone?
The most challenging thing was
raising the money. It took us two
years to raise our funding. We
started in early 2008 and found the
first investor, Opus Capital, within
a month. Most people say if you
can find one investor, you will find
another one easily. In our particular
case, because of the economic
environment of 2008 combined with
the environment of semiconductor
investments (which continued to
worsen throughout the year), we
saw that it was unlikely we would
close our funding in 2008. After
2008, we really had to regroup.
Opus stood with us. In the summer
of 2009, the economic environment
was getting better; VCs were
starting to put money to work. We
Brett Fox - President and CEO at Touchstone Semiconductor, Inc.
4
EE
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Visit
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INTERVIEW
started to raise money in earnest
again. In early fall, we found Khosla
Ventures as our second investor. I
am thrilled at how it worked out; we
found two really good investors who
know our space. Opus’ Managing
Partner, Gill Cogan, was actually
an original investor in Maxim, and
when you look at our business
model, we knew he would be a
fantastic resource. Pierre Lamond
led the deal for Khosla Ventures.
Pierre is a co-founder of National
Semiconductor and was involved
with Linear Technology and many
other successful semiconductor
companies. He was very familiar
with what we were doing, and was
looking for a company like ours to
invest in. Our funding (money in
the bank) came on March 8, 2010,
and since that time it has been a
relatively straightforward ride for
the company. I am not saying there
have not been bumps along the way,
because indeed there are always
unforeseen things.
up setting the strategic direction
for most areas of the company.
After Maxim I worked at a start-up
for about nine months. Then I went
to Micrel for about four years and
ran the high bandwidth division. I
ended up turning that around from
being the least profitable division of
the company to the most profitable
when I left. From there I went to
Crosslink Capital for about a year,
and then started working full time
on Touchstone.
that, he is a fantastic manager, and
a very good business man. In the
Analog world, that is a very rare
combination. When you put all three
of those factors together, you have
a great VP of Engineering for a
company like Touchstone.
Adolfo Garcia, our VP of Marketing
and Applications, started out also as
a designer. He went from being in
the design world to joining Analog
Devices, and worked there for
several years before moving on to
Linear Technology and continuing in
applications for several more years.
He then worked at Micrel, which is
where we crossed paths. He was
running part of that business on the
analog side. He then worked at a
couple of other analog companies,
and when I was looking to start
Touchstone, he was the ideal guy to
run marketing and applications. You
want someone who is technically
very strong and who can cover a lot
of different products.
The thing that we really
want customers to think
about Touchstone is that
the company is doing
cool and unique things.
Hopefully, as time goes
on, we will achieve
that reputation, and
customers will look to
us for those types of cool
and unique products.
The design team is mostly from
Maxim, Linear, Analog Devices,
National, or MPS. All of the designers
in the company have also worked
together in some way, shape, or
form. Some of the designers and I
go back 20 years; they all average
about 20 years of experience and
about 10 patents per designer. So
this is a group that can hit the ground
running, can work independently,
and will be able to get things done
in a reasonable time period. We
also wanted people that fit in our
company culture, you want people
that work well together. It does not
mean that everyone has to be best
friends or see eye to eye on every
issue, but they have to be able to
work well together and understand
Can you tell us about the
Founders of Touchstone
Semiconductor, Inc.?
All of us either come from Maxim,
Linear, or Analog Devices. Most of
the team has worked together in
one way, shape, or form.
I have my BSEE from the University
of California, San Diego, and
my MBA from the University of
Southern California. In 1989 I joined
Maxim, and before that I was a
designer for about five years. When
I joined Maxim, it was a roughly
$40 million company, and when I
left in 2000, they were making over
a billion dollars in revenue. I was
very fortunate—right place, right
time, and right set of skills. I ended
Jeroen Fonderie, the Vice President
of Engineering, has a PhD from Delft
University in the Netherlands. That is
one of the best engineering schools
for analog designers in Europe.
When he was there he wrote a book
on op amp design. He has written
over 20 scientific publications, and
he holds seven patents. Beyond
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