| Company type | Division |
|---|---|
| Industry | Computer networking |
| Founded | Ottawa, Canada (1994) |
| Founder | Antoine Paquin and Stefan Opalski |
| Fate | Acquired by Cisco Systems |
| Headquarters | Canada |
| Parent | Cisco Systems |
Skystone Systems was a fabless semiconductor company based in Ottawa, Canada. Skystone Systems developed a family of semiconductor products to enable data connectivity in Datacom Equipments (i.e. Ethernet switches or IP Routers) for wide area networks. The flagship product of Skystone Systems was an OC-48 Packet Over SONET Processor (also referred to as an Application Specific Standard Part), first in the industry.
The company was co-founded by Antoine Paquin and Stefan Opalski in 1994. Prior to Skystone, they worked together in Nortel Networks (Bell Northern Research). Early employees of Skystone were Hojjat Salemi (CTO), Brian Stemmler and Niall F.Quaid, CA (VP Finance). The key ideas that developed the foundation of the start up were developed in Stefan Opalski's house. He was instrumental to acquire key talent from well establish companies such as Nortel Networks and Mitel. Antoine also started other companies after Skystone.