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Panel: The evolution of semiconductor business models: is the fabless dead or alive and kicking?
Tuesday December 1, 2009, 13:30 - 15:00 | Room: Auditorium

The maturing semiconductor industry and weak financial markets with limited funding options raise questions regarding further viability of the fabless model. Is there still room for entrepreneurial juices to flow in the semiconductor business or are we more or less becoming like the automobile industry? The industry evolution took us from the IDM model to pure-play foundry, fabless, and IP provider (chipless) business models. Many of these models are currently experiencing serious issues and the pundits are pointing to alternative approaches seeking inspiration from publishing, pharmaceutical, or Hollywood movie production models. This panel will explore these issues from the perspective of both mature and early-stage semiconductor companies today.

Chairperson:

		C. Paul Slaby Kaben Wireless Silicon Inc President & CEO
	Dr. Slaby is an experienced high-tech executive and entrepreneur with a track record of building successful companies in the area of semiconductors and information technology. He was a founder and CEO of ATMOS Corporation, a leader in embedded IC memory compilers, from 1994 until its acquisition by Monolithic System Technology (NASDAQ:MOSY) in 2002. He also founded VoIPshield Systems Inc in 2004 and as its CEO, he grew the company to become an acknowledged industry leader. His previous accomplishments include founding and running an overseas design center, MicroSemiX Ltd, and establishing a non-profit charitable foundation PHF Inc which he ran as President in 1994-1999. Earlier in his career he held various engineering and management positions in Bell Northern Research, Nortel, and Carleton University. He is an author of numerous articles, scientific publications and conference papers. He served on the Board of Directors of Strategic Microelectronics Consortium, as well as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence for the National Research Council and as an Advisor to Carleton University Foundry program. Paul’s current project is Kaben Wireless Silicon which he joined in 2007 as its CEO. KABEN is a leading RFIC developer and Semiconductor IP provider addressing Next Generation wireless communications based on multiple standards. Paul enjoys building KABEN in the post high-tech bubble era using an old fashioned approach of customer focus, cashflow based financing and no venture capital funding. He is having a great fun at it!

Panelists:

		Stan Swirhun Senior VP & GM, Optical Products Group Zarlink Semiconductor
	Stan has been Senior Vice President of Zarlink Semiconductor Inc., since June 9, 2005 and serves as its General Manager of Optical Products. Dr. Swirhun served as Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Picolight Incorporated from 1997 to 2004 and its President. He has over 25 years experience of entrepreneurial, management and technology ... experience in the micro and optical electronics industries and in semiconductor and communication engineering, product development, marketing, business development at Vixel Corp., Bandgap Technology, Honeywell and NorTel. At Bandgap, he initiated, staffed and led development of the industry’s first commercial VCSEL. Prior to joining Picolight in 1997, Dr. Swirhun served as Vice President, Engineering, Chief Technology Officer at Vixel Corp. from 1993 to 1997, where he directed Vixel’s thrust into fiber-optic communications, datacom laser components, and Storage Area Networks. He contributed to development of the first Fibre-Channel Hub and GBIC transceiver, participated in three equity financings and the 1996 acquisition of the Western Digital Fiber Channel group. Prior to that, he designed and developed microwave and CMOS circuits and processes and designed telephone transmission circuits. He serves as a Director at Picolight Incorporated. Dr. Swirhun earned a doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University.
		Kalar Rajendiran Senior Director, Marketing eSilicon
	Kalar Rajendiran is the Senior Director of Marketing for eSilicon Corporation, where he is responsible for the company's product marketing, corporate marketing, marketing operations and semiconductor IP strategy. He joined eSilicon in 2000, prior to the company's public launch. Rajendiran has held several senior engineering and marketing management positions with National Semiconductor, LSI Logic and Larsen & Toubro. He holds a BE in Electrical Engineering from Anna University, an MS in Computer Science from Texas Tech University, and an MBA from Santa Clara University.
		Joachim Kunkel Vice President and General Manager, Solutions Group Synopsys
	Joachim Kunkel joined Synopsys in 1994 and is currently vice president and general manager of the Solutions Group. In that capacity, he manages the business units responsible for Synopsys DesignWare® intellectual property (IP), strategic market development and system-level design. Before coming to Synopsys, Mr. Kunkel was co-founder of CADIS GmbH in Aachen, Germany. There, he served as managing director and performed myriad duties in engineering, sales and marketing. Before co-founding CADIS, Mr. Kunkel was a research assistant at the Aachen University of Technology, where he conducted research in system-level simulation techniques for digital signal processing, with special emphasis on parallel computing. Mr. Kunkel holds an MSEE degree, the Dipl.-Ing. der Nachrichtentechnik, from the Aachen University of Technology.
		Jean-Philippe Gendre Investment Director Emertec
	Jean-Philippe GENDRE is an investment director of Emertec Gestion which he joined in January 2004. His areas of investment focus include semiconductor, EDA, embedded software, components, communication and wireless infrastructure and devices. Prior to this, he had ten years of experience in the microelectronics sector in sales and marketing; he was a Sales Director at DuPont Photomasks Inc. where he managed for seven years the sales and business development for a global account, prior to this he was a Product Marketing Mgr at Motorola Semiconductor for three years. Before this period in the semiconductor, he spent five years in consultancy and computer services. JP GENDRE holds a M.Sc. in Electrical Engineering from the Ecole Supérieure d’Electricité (SUPELEC) and a MBA from INSEAD. JP GENDRE sits on the boards of Movidius Ltd, Sonic Emotion AG, Mesa Imaging AG, Caps Entreprise SA, CoFluent Design SA and Edxact SA.