Speaker Bio:  

Walden C. Rhines
CEO & Chairman of the Board of Directors, Mentor Graphics
He is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mentor Graphics, a leader in worldwide electronic design automation with revenue of $789 million in 2008. During his tenure at Mentor Graphics, revenue has more than doubled and Mentor has grown the industrys number one market share solutions in four of the ten largest product segments of the EDA industry. Prior to joining Mentor Graphics, Rhines was Executive Vice President of Texas Instruments; Semiconductor Group, sharing responsibility for TIs Components Sector, and having direct responsibility for the entire semiconductor business with more than $5 billion of revenue and over 30,000 people. During his 21 years at TI, Rhines managed TIs thrust into digital signal processing and supervised that business from inception with the TMS 320 family of DSPs through growth to become the cornerstone of TIs semiconductor technology. He also supervised the development of the first TI speech synthesis devices (used in "Speak & Spell") and is co-inventor of the GaN blue-violet light emitting diode (now important for DVD players). He was President of TIs Data Systems Group and held numerous other semiconductor executive management positions. Rhines is currently in his fourth term as Chairman of the Electronic Design Automation Consortium. He is also a board member of the Semiconductor Research Corporation and First Growth Family & Children Charities. He has previously served as chairman of the Semiconductor Technical Advisory Committee of the Department of Commerce, as an executive committee member of the board of directors of the Corporation for Open Systems and as a board member of the Computer and Business Equipment Manufacturers; Association (CBEMA), SEMI-Sematech/SISA, Electronic Design Automation Consortium (EDAC), University of Michigan National Advisory Council, Lewis and Clark College and SEMATECH. Dr. Rhines holds a Bachelor of Science degree in metallurgical engineering from the University of Michigan, a Master of Science and Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from Stanford University, a master of business administration from Southern Methodist University and an Honorary Doctor of Technology degree from Nottingham Trent University.
John Cooley
Moderator ,, Deepchip.com
John Cooley is the moderator of deepchip.com and the ESNUG newsletter that he founded nearly 20 years ago. John is an IC designer who was frustrated by the lack of good technical information behind the marketing hype smoke and mirrors. He founded the newsletter as a forum for designers to share the truth about the tools they used every day. He has worked as an IC design consultant for over 20 years after his first job with Data General working on the eclipse processor. As the new kid on the block, he was put on ASIC design and handed a copy of Design Compiler version 1.1. The rest is history. His clients have included Broadcom, Tektronix, Digital Equipment Corporation and a host of other companies that dont want to admit they had a chip in crisis and called for help.
Vasudevan Aghoramoorthy
Vice President, Wipro Technologies
Vasudevan Aghoramoorthy is the Vice President of the Semiconductor and Systems solutions group of Wipro Technologies. Wipro Technologies is focused on providing software and hardware design services to global clients in multiple industry segments and the Semiconductor and Systems group is a key practice within the larger Product Engineering Services business at Wipro. During the initial period, he had been part of the R&D team that focused on developing high end servers. As Wipro entered the product engineering services in early 90s, he was involved in the hardware design services for the global market. Wipro’s VLSI team works for semiconductor and OEM companies in consumer, communication, computing and embedded markets. About one third of the team focuses on system design to create end products and the rest of the team work in the area of VLSI design.
Rajiv Kapur
Managing Director,, Broadcom India
Rajiv Kapur has been with Broadcom for over two and a half years now where he is responsible for all operations and business development in India. Prior to joining Broadcom, he was with LSI for almost 14 years. Rajiv was based in LSI’s internal ASIC Technology R&D organization at Milpitas, California before he moved to Bangalore as its country head in 2004. He grew the company India to a diverse setup across 3 cities and led his team on providing IP, Software CAD, Methodology, Libraries and Product integration. Rajiv holds a degree in B.E. (Hons.) Electrical and Electronics Engineering and an M.Sc. in Physics from BITS, Pilani. He also holds an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, California. Rajiv has been issued 5 Patents by the US Patent Office mostly in Physical Design CAD algorithms.
Neeraj Paliwal
Vice President and India Country Manager, NXP
Neeraj Paliwal holds dual role at NXP; Country Manager - NXP India and Design Services Global Manager - Corporate R&D. At NXP India; his main focus is on building "HPMS product creation" capability at the Bangalore Centre. In the corporate R&D role, Neeraj manages the global R&D teams located in Netherlands, Belgium, India, and Germany. Neerajs passion lies in implementing breakthrough innovation as NXP raises the bar on high performance mixed signal products. Neeraj joined NXP in 2007 from IBM, where he led the CELL gaming processor tools and methodology team at IBM Microelectronics. At IBM, he led teams contributing to the success of Sony Playstation3 and Microsoft XBOX360 products. Prior to IBM, Neeraj worked at Intel Corporation, ITI Limited and start-up Duet Technologies in various technical and leadership roles. At Intel, Neeraj was responsible for the design and developments of 32-bit x86 microprocessors, and chipsets for 64-bit microprocessors. Neeraj holds two Masters Degrees in Physics specializing in Electronics and Solid State Materials. He regularly delivers keynotes at various industry and academic forums like IEEE conferences. Neeraj is involved in promoting IC Design higher education and research at Indian Universities
Srini Rajam
Chairman and CEO,, Ittiam
Srini Rajam is the Chairman and CEO of Ittiam Systems and has been responsible for building Ittiam from its inception. Under his leadership, the company has grown its global customer base to over 300 customers today and has received several accolades in India and abroad. Prior to Ittiam, Srini was the Managing Director of Texas Instruments India from 1995-2000 and was instrumental in making TI India one of the most valuable R&D centres for TI globally. He also served as a Member of the TI Asia Leadership Team and Chairman of TI Asia advisory team for regional technical council. Srini has also donned several industry roles that include serving as the Member of Governing Council of the Department of Electronics’ Software Technology Parks, Member of Karnataka State IT Task Force and Chairman of Indo-American Chamber of Commerce. Srini has a Master’s Degree in Computer Science from the School of Automation, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore and Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Madurai University.