everything RF recently interviewed Duncan Pilgrim, Chief Commercial Officer at Marki Microwave, to discuss the company’s recent acquisition of LintrinsIC Semiconductors. Duncan leads sales, marketing, and applications, and is responsible for driving the company’s commercial strategy and growth. He brings over 30 years of experience in the RF and semiconductor industry, with prior leadership roles at IDT (Renesas), pSemi, and Sequoia Communications. Duncan holds an MBA from Wake Forest University and a BSEE from the University of Birmingham, UK.
Q. Congratulations on the acquisition of LintrinsIC Semiconductors. For readers unfamiliar with LintrinsIC, can you share the company's history, founding story, and the market need it was originally created to address?
Duncan Pilgrim: LintrinsIC Semiconductors was founded by Cameron Hill, Ph.D., whose work traces back to the DARPA Signal Processing at RF (SPAR) program at UC Santa Barbara's Buckwalter Group, where he completed his Ph.D. in electronics and photonics in 2020. The SPAR program’s objective was to improve self-interference rejection at the antenna, and the Buckwalter Group’s approach required high-power modulators capable of extremely fast switching while tolerating the output of a power amplifier. Each of these modulators was composed of four switches, and Cam recognized that improved RF switches had enormous commercial potential. He founded LintrinsIC to develop this technology from concept to prototype and into production. The market need LintrinsIC addresses is real and growing in both A&D and high-performance commercial markets, where engineers have long relied on solutions that either handle high power but are slow, or are fast and integrable but historically limited in power handling. FastSwitch™ technology was built to solve that tradeoff.
Q. What strategic factors led Marki Microwave to acquire LintrinsIC at this stage? What opportunity did you see in the RF switching market, and how does this acquisition align with Marki's long-term strategy of expanding as a single-source provider of high-performance RF and microwave solutions?
Duncan Pilgrim: Switches and switch-based control products were a hole in our portfolio, something our customers were asking for, and something we recognized internally as a gap we needed to fill. Over the past 20 years, RF-SOI has established itself as the de facto technology for switch-based products. It is the technology of choice for handsets, wireless infrastructure, and Wi-Fi; it has won the market broadly. There is also a strong and growing need across A&D, test and measurement, and commercial markets, including wireless infrastructure for switches that can handle high power while also switching quickly. That combination has been difficult to deliver on a standard RF-SOI platform. LintrinsIC gives us the RF-SOI design capability to accelerate development of switch-based products, but more importantly, it brings unique IP that builds on the standard RF-SOI platform to support high-power, fast-switching products. This is a capability the market needs and a result that standard approaches have not been able to deliver.
Q. LintrinsIC's FastSwitch™ SOI CMOS technology offers high power handling, ultra-fast switching, and broad frequency coverage. How does it differentiate itself from traditional RF switching technologies, and what key performance advantages does it provide for modern RF system designers?
Duncan Pilgrim: High-power switches have traditionally been supported by PIN diode solutions; they require complex external driver circuitry, which takes board space and consumes a lot of power. More recently, GaN has entered the market with a solution that is more integrated, but has higher insertion loss and complex driver and power sequencing requirements. In some narrow-band applications, RF-SOI has provided acceptable solutions, at the cost of increased switching speed with increased power. FastSwitch takes the integration and low-loss attributes of RF-SOI and enables the higher power and fast switch capabilities, building an almost ideal platform for this class of switch.
Q. How does acquiring LintrinsIC and integrating its high-performance RF switching technology strengthen Marki Microwave's long-term strategy as a single-source provider of complete RF signal chain solutions?
Duncan Pilgrim: Switches and switch-based control products were a clear gap in our signal chain offering. Adding FastSwitch technology means we can now engage with our customers across more of the architecture, covering functions that previously required them to go elsewhere. What single source means to us is not just having a broad catalog but having the depth and breadth to be a genuine partner in the system design conversation. Every acquisition we make is evaluated against that standard.
Q. Which applications stand to benefit most from FastSwitch technology? What key customer challenges does it solve, and where do you see the biggest opportunities across defense, aerospace, satellite, 5G, and emerging commercial markets?
Duncan Pilgrim: For Marki, our initial focus is on our existing core markets, which include A&D, test and measurement, and Space. For A&D, there are a number of different areas, such as electronic warfare, signal intelligence, and test solutions, where the technology will enable critical improvements in performance. RADAR is the most obvious use case where the switching time defines the blind spot of the RADAR; the longer the switching time, the longer the RADAR is blind. Compared to typical existing solutions on the market, we can offer approximately a 4.5x improvement in switching speed at equivalent powers, with substantial room for further improvement. Another key area is the ability to support wideband products that operate at very low frequencies with higher powers and fast switching, which enables customers to transition from mechanical solutions to semiconductor-based solutions.
The integration potential of SOI CMOS, including lower power consumption and smaller footprint, is a genuine advantage in many end markets as our customers attempt to fit capabilities into the same or smaller form factors.
Long-term, we see an opportunity in leveraging this technology platform into new product families to continue our march to being a single source for our customers.
Q. How will LintrinsIC's products, team, and technology be integrated into Marki Microwave's portfolio? Will the brand continue independently, and how do you see this acquisition accelerating future product development and commercialization?
Duncan Pilgrim: Cam and the team are joining Marki. We believe that IP is always the most valuable when you maintain the team that developed it. Based on where LintrinsIC was in their journey, they hadn't built out the operational organization required to ramp their products. Marki brings the operational excellence required to successfully ramp production, and the sales channel and customer relationships will leverage the advantage of the amazing technology and products that LintrinsIC has developed. The switches will also enable the integration of Marki's technology with LintrinsIC technology, enabling new product classes.
Q. What are the biggest technical and commercial synergies you expect from this acquisition? How does it strengthen Marki Microwave's competitive position, and what future innovations or next-generation RF solutions do you see emerging from this combined technology portfolio?
Duncan Pilgrim: From a commercial perspective, we made the acquisition due to the complementary nature of the technology. Our strong relationships with the customers in A&D and test and measurement will allow us to not only accelerate the LintrinsIC product revenue growth but will also accelerate and enable a clearer picture for our customers’ roadmap needs.
Looking further out, we see the combination pointing toward more highly integrated solutions. As systems demand greater frequency agility and reconfigurability, the ability to design switching, amplification, and frequency conversion as an integrated system rather than as discrete components becomes a genuine competitive differentiator. That is the direction we are working toward.
Q. How does this acquisition expand Marki Microwave's customer base and market opportunities, particularly in defense, government, and other high-growth sectors, and do you see it creating new business opportunities beyond your existing customer segments?
Duncan Pilgrim: This acquisition was about bringing in new technology, not expanding our customer base or entering new markets. We see huge opportunities to bring this technology to our existing customers, end applications, and markets. LintrinsIC also brought its own early customer relationships, particularly in defense programs evaluating SOI CMOS switching for its performance advantages, which represent new entry points into existing customers for Marki. We also see other new opportunities in our existing customer base as we support new products and product families.
Q. Marki Microwave has recently expanded through acquisitions, including LintrinsIC and Saetta Labs. Do these moves reflect a broader acquisition-driven strategy to build a more comprehensive high-performance RF portfolio, and how has private equity ownership (IGP) influenced this growth approach?
Duncan Pilgrim: The acquisitions of LintrinsIC and Saetta Labs reflect a deliberate strategy and are not opportunistic. We don't have the desire or plan to become an RF roll-up. Any acquisition that we do will be to support our long-term strategy of building a company that produces differentiated solutions to support our customers’ long-term roadmaps.
IGP is involved in our M&A strategy, and having their financial backing enables us to move quickly and aggressively with companies that we believe will enhance our long-term vision and growth.
About the Company:
Founded in 1991 to develop the best mixers in the industry, today Marki Microwave is a single source for high-performance, broadband microwave products. They support multiple form factors, including die, surface mount, and connectorized solutions for the entire RF block diagram from DC to sub-THz frequencies. For over 30 years, Marki has solved the industry’s toughest technical problems by creating a robust portfolio of performance-shattering RF and microwave components.
Inventing leading-edge products and focusing on key technical challenges that face the evolving RF and microwave industry have been the cornerstones of Marki's success. Innovation and creativity are part of their DNA, propelling them forward as they continue to challenge the status quo.
