EDA and Semiconductor Experts to Help Guide Continuing Growth of Leading Physical Design Company
SAN JOSE, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — September 22, 2010 — ATopTech, Inc., the leader in next generation physical design solutions, today announced additions to its board of directors. The board, which includes notables from the electronic design automation (EDA) and semiconductor industries, will provide guidance as the company continues to develop its long-term technology and business roadmap. ATopTech’s products provide physical design tools that address the challenges of designing integrated circuits (ICs) at the most advanced technology nodes.
The board is comprised of chairman Wu-Fu Chen, partner at Dragon Investments Fund; Jue-Hsien Chern, Ph.D., CEO of ATopTech; Jackson Hu, Ph.D., Chairman and CEO of NeoEnergy Microelectronics; Ping-San Tzeng, President and CTO of ATopTech; and Sang Wang, Ph.D., currently on the boards of Altos Design Automation, Anchor Semiconductor, and Silicon Frontline Technology.
“ATopTech is committed to providing cutting-edge physical design tools for advanced process nodes,” said Jue-Hsien Chern. “We are pleased that our roadmap and the continuing recognition of ATopTech’s EDA technology has attracted this broad range of industry experts. ATopTech will benefit from their business and technology acumen.”
About the Board Members
Wu-Fu Chen is a partner at Dragon Investment Fund, one of the leading technology transfer, business accelerator, and investment fund sources in Taiwan. An established entrepreneur and investor, Mr. Chen was named as one of the top ten entrepreneurs of 2000 by Red Herring magazine and has won numerous awards for operational and entrepreneurial excellence. He has started more than a dozen companies, and co-founded many successful ventures, including Cascade Communications (where he held the position of vice president of engineering), Arris Networks (where he acted as chairman and CEO), Ardent Communications, Navini Networks and Shasta Networks. An established investor, Mr. Chen was ranked by Forbes magazine as one of the top 100 venture investors in the U.S. in 2002.
Dr. Jue-Hsien Chern has over twenty years of experience in high technology companies. Prior to joining ATopTech, he was vice president and general manager of the DSM division at Mentor Graphics for nine years. He was at Texas Instruments for 10 years, holding positions as SMTS and branch manager within the Semiconductor Process and Design Center. Dr. Chern has also served as head of the DSM business unit at Avant! and vice president, engineering, and CTO at Technology Marketing Associates. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees from National Taiwan University and a Ph.D. from SUNY, Buffalo, New York.
Dr. Jackson Hu is a 32-year veteran of the semiconductor industry with 27 years in fabless design and five years running a foundry. Chairman and CEO of NeoEnergy Microelectronics since May 2009, he has also served as CEO and chairman of UMC during his five years with the company, as president and CEO of SiRF Technologies from 1996 until 2002, and as senior vice president and general manager of S3. Dr. Hu was also co-founder of Verticom (acquired by Western Digital) and of IC Ensemble (acquired by Via Technology). Dr. Hu earned his Ph.D. and M.S. in computer science from the University of Illinois, Urbana and his M.B.A. from Santa Clara University.
Dr. Sang Wang has served in various executive positions in the EDA industry: as CEO and chairman of Nassda Corp; as co-founder, CEO and chairman of EPIC Design Technology; as senior vice president and business unit co-general manager at Synopsys; and as a senior member of the technical staff and a CAD manager at Advanced Micro Devices. Dr. Wang has been a board member of various EDA and high technology companies, and of the EDA Consortium, in addition to his current board commitments. He has served on the boards of EPIC, Gambit, Golden Gate Technology, Nanovata, Nassda, Plato, Ponte Solutions, Stanza, Synopsys, and Virage Logic. Dr. Wang holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from National Taiwan University, a M.S. in physics from Ohio State University, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.
Dr. Ping-San Tzeng brings over 18 years of EDA experience with him to ATopTech. Dr. Tzeng was one of the original developers of ArcCellXO, developed at ArcSys in 1992. He was the key architect in the evolution of ArcCell to the industry known place and route systems Aquarius, Apollo and Astro. Dr. Tzeng continued to work and enhance his routing technology at ArcSys, Avant! and Synopsys (ArcSys formed Avant!, Avant! was aquired by Synopsys in 2002). He holds the prestigious honor of Avant! Fellow and Synopsys Fellow. Prior to ArcSys, he held positions at Cadence Design and Quickturn Design Systems. He holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from National Taiwan University and a Ph.D. in computer science from U.C., Berkeley.
For additional information: http://www.atoptech.com/board-of-directors
About ATopTech
ATopTech, Inc., is the technology leader in integrated circuit (IC) physical design. ATopTech’s technology offers fast design closure focused at processes 65 nm and below. The company’s first product family,
Aprisa™, has extremely accurate correlation to golden sign-off tools, produces design rule check (DRC)-clean designs, features MCMM optimization at all phases, and offers 10-15 percent better timing and up to 10 percent less standard cell area than existing tools. The use of state-of-the-art multi-threading and distributed processing technologies speeds up the design process, resulting in unsurpassed project completion times. For more information, see
www.atoptech.com
