Subodh Toprani comes to ZettaCore from Infineon Technologies North America, where he ran the Wireline Communications business as senior vice president and general manager. Prior to that, he was president and CEO of Catamaran Communications, a company he sold to Infineon after recruiting key personnel, establishing the infrastructure, completing the first product and developing the first customers. For the six years prior to Catamaran, Toprani was at Rambus Inc., initially as vice president of marketing, and ultimately as vice president and general manager, Logic Products Division. While at Rambus, among his many accomplishments were successfully positioning the company as the industry’s first IP company, developing its thrust into the consumer and communications business, and enabling the successful launch of the Sony PlayStation® 2 incorporating Rambus technology.
Earlier in his career, Mr. Toprani worked for more than a dozen years for Advanced Micro Devices, beginning as a field applications engineer and advancing to become director of marketing and systems engineering for the Embedded Processor Division and the Personal Computer Products Division. He received his BSEE and MSEE from the Illinois Institute of Technology.
Ritu Shrivastava brings more than 24 years of semiconductor industry experience to the company. He is responsible for guiding the company’s molecular technology integration and manufacturing strategy, as well as building relationships with semiconductor manufacturers and foundries. He comes to ZettaCore from Alliance Semiconductor Corp., where he held positions of increasing responsibility, culminating in his role as vice president and general manager, technology development and operations. At Alliance, Shrivastava was responsible for technology development, initial ramp-up, and volume manufacturing of SRAM, DRAM and Flash memories, as well as mixed signal and logic products. He negotiated and executed numerous foundry technology and production agreements, enabling both Alliance and its foundry partners to successfully ramp up new processes, products and fabs. Prior to Alliance, Shrivastava worked at Cypress Semiconductor for more than 10 years, where he held various senior technology management positions during the company’s growth from a startup to an established and respected company .
Dr. Shrivastava began his industry career at Mostek Corporation/United Technologies, after serving on the faculty at Louisiana State University for three years. He earned a B.E. and an M.E. with distinction in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Science, and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from Louisiana State University.
Craig W. Rhodine was most recently the Chief Operating Officer for Ramtron International Corporation, a semiconductor technology company providing technology and product solutions to the semiconductor and electronics industries. Previously, Mr. Rhodine served as President of Enhanced Memory Systems, Inc., a specialty semiconductor memory company owned by Ramtron and Infineon Technologies. Prior to Ramtron and Enhanced Memory Systems, Mr. Rhodine was employed by Texas Instruments where he was a Member of the Group Technical Staff involved with memory product development. Mr. Rhodine holds three patents and received his Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Wyoming.
Werner G. Kuhr, Vice President of Research, was professor of chemistry at the University of California, Riverside. Professor Kuhr earned B.S. and M.S. degrees in Chemistry from Stevens Institute of Technology (1980-82). He also worked as a research chemist in analytical development at Merck until 1982. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Indiana University (1986), then spent one year as a NATO Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, followed by one year as an Ames Lab Postdoctoral Fellow at Iowa State University. He joined the chemistry faculty at the University of California, Riverside as an assistant professor (1988), was promoted to associate professor (1993) and to full professor (1998). His research has focused on the development of micro- and nano-scale techniques for the design and characterization of electrochemical devices. Professor Kuhr has published over 90 scientific papers, delivered over 100 invited lectures at conferences and universities across the world, and been issued ten U.S. and international patents. He is currently serving on the board of directors of the Society of Electroanalytical Chemistry. He founded and served as the director of the UCR Microfabrication Facility (1999-2002) and was a founding member of the UCR Genomics Institute. He has been the recipient of a number of awards including a Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation (1989); a Young Investigator Award from the Society of Electroanalytical Chemistry (1993); the Jubilee Silver Medal from the Chromatographic Society, England (1994) and he was named a Tour Speaker for the Society of Analytical Spectroscopy (1994).
Mr. Nimmagadda leads business development activities for ZettaCore. Prior to joining the company, Mr. Nimmagadda ran the marketing, architecture and applications engineering groups at Infineon Technologies (Catamaran Communications acquisition). During his tenure at Infineon, Mr. Nimmagadda's team delivered several major design wins at top-tier OEMs, establishing Infineon as a key player in the emerging next-generation SONET space. Prior to Infineon/Catamaran, Mr. Nimmagadda was at Rambus Inc., where he was instrumental in establishing the infrastructure around Direct Rambus technology. In addition, he managed the Intel Account during Direct Rambus deployment, and signed multiple IP licensing deals with DRAM/Module companies in a business development role. Prior to Rambus, Mr. Nimmagadda held technical positions at Sun Microsystems and Tandem Computers (now part of HP). He holds an MBA from The University of California, Berkeley and an MSEE from The University of Arizona. |
