2023: Welcome to the Danger Zone

I just got this notice from my good friend and fellow sailor Rich Curtin. The Silicon Catalyst events are the best open networking events in Silicon Valley, absolutely. And this one includes another good friend Wally Rhines, the most interesting man in semiconductors, so you don’t want to miss this. The live event will definitely fill up but there will be a follow-on virtual event so register now.

Silicon Catalyst is pleased to continue our collaboration with Silicon Valley Bank in hosting our 5^th Annual Semiconductor Industry Forum, returning to an in-person event on December 6 at their auditorium in Santa Clara.

The Silicon Catalyst Semiconductor Industry Forum was launched in 2018, hosted at the TSMC Silicon Valley headquarters. The Forum’s charter is to enable a town-hall like event to discuss the broad impact of semiconductors on our world, beyond the traditional focus on technology and financial reviews and forecasts.

The topics discussed during that inaugural 2018 event covered the cost of fabs, IoT business opportunities, memory technology and foreshadowed the gathering storm clouds about the potential impact of China’s activities in the semiconductor sector. Clearly, the key take-away was that the semiconductor industry was on the verge of major structural changes.

Looking back now as we close out 2022, wow, was that an understatement!

For a re-cap of the 2018 Forum, check out the IEEE Spectrum coverage at https://spectrum.ieee.org/semiconductor-industry-veterans-see-the-old-order-crumbling.

Zoom recordings of Forum 3 2020 and Forum 4 2021 are available for replay from our website.

Forum 5 – “2023: Welcome to the Danger Zone”

The coming year is shaping up as the perfect storm for our industry, as we look to adapt to the unprecedented challenges to be addressed across our businesses, along with our personal and national security. We’ve arranged a stellar panel of speakers, moderated by Don Clark, contributing journalist for the NY Times for our Forum 5 event.

Silicon Catalyst CEO, Pete Rodriguez, will kick things off with an insider’s view of his participation on the PCAST Semiconductor Working Group and the creation of the report to the President. For background information about the PCAST Group, I encourage you to read the details at:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/POTUS-letter_PCAST-Semiconductors_09AUG2022.pdf

https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/PCAST_Semiconductors-Report_Sep2022.pdf

https://www.nist.gov/chips/national-semiconductor-technology-center-update-community

The Forum 5 panel will discuss potential strategies and tactics to help us navigate through the danger zone and includes:

Navin Chaddha – Managing Director, Mayfield Fund

Navin is Managing Director at Mayfield. He has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and has ranked on the Forbes Midas List of Top 100 Tech Investors fourteen times, including being named in the Top Five in 2020 and 2022. His investments have created over $120 billion in equity value and over 40,000 jobs. During his venture capital career, Navin has invested in over 60 companies, of which 18 have gone public and 25 have been acquired. He believes the Renaissance of Silicon will create industry giants and has invested in semiconductor companies including Nuvia, Fungible, Alif Semiconductor, Frore Systems, and several others in stealth. As an entrepreneur, Navin has co-founded or led three startups, of which one went public and 2 were acquired. Navin holds an MS degree in electrical engineering from Stanford University and a B.Tech. degree in electrical engineering from IIT Delhi, where he was honored with a distinguished IIT Alumni Award.

Dr. Wally Rhines, President & CEO of Cornami; GSA 2021 Morris Chang Exemplary Leadership award recipient

Dr. Rhines is President and CEO of Cornami, Inc., a fabless software/semiconductor company focused on intelligent computing for fully homomorphic encryption and machine learning. He was previously CEO of Mentor Graphics for 25 years and Chairman of the Board for 17 years. During his tenure at Mentor, revenue nearly quadrupled and market value of the company increased 10X. Prior to joining Mentor Graphics, Dr. Rhines was Executive Vice President, Semiconductor Group, responsible for TI’s worldwide semiconductor business. Dr. Rhines has served on the boards of Cirrus Logic, QORVO, TriQuint Semiconductor, Global Logic, PTK Corp. and as Chairman of the Electronic Design Automation Consortium (five two-year terms). He is a Lifetime Fellow of the IEEE. Additionally, his experience includes four years on the board of SEMATECH, three years on the board of SEMI-SEMATECH and twenty years on the board of SRC (Semiconductor Research Corporation). Dr. Rhines holds a Bachelor of Science degree in engineering from the University of Michigan, a Master of Science and PhD in materials science and engineering from Stanford University, an MBA from Southern Methodist University and Honorary Doctor of Technology degrees from the University of Florida and Nottingham Trent University.

Maryam Rofougaran – CEO and Founder, Movandi

Maryam Rofougaran is founder and CEO of Movandi, a leader in new 5G RF and millimeter wave technology that is commercializing multi-gigabit, 5G millimeter wave networks. Movandi is breaking through coverage and network challenges of 5G millimeter wave networks. Their BeamXR active repeater and system solutions solves today’s real world 5G deployment challenges – by increasing 5G coverage and capacity, while reducing infrastructure costs by 50%, accelerating large-scale 5G commercialization. Prior to co-founding Movandi, Maryam was the Sr Vice president of Radio Engineering at Broadcom and was instrumental in starting and building the wireless business at Broadcom and in growing it to annual revenues of more than $3 billion. She is an Inventor and co-inventor on 300 U.S. issued patents, 85 U.S. filed patents and is co-author to many publications. Her first startup, Innovent Systems was acquired by Broadcom Corporation and was the entrance of Broadcom in wireless business.

All Forum 5 registrants will be able to summit questions to the panelists in advance, for potential discussion during the Q&A portions of Forum 5.