1 .VINOD DHAM - CEO Silicon Spice.
It seems like only yesterday that people were tapping away on computers powered by chips called 286, 386, and so on -- the so-called "X86" series of microprocessors. Most users didn't quite understand what the chips were or did, or who actually made them -- they just had the vague understanding that the higher the number, the faster their machine would run. All of a sudden, in 1993, Intel changed the game with its launch of the first named chip -- the Pentium. Consumers had been told just a few years before to look for "Intel Inside"; now they had a name to go with it.
"Living in the Silicon Valley, if you do not do a startup, then something is wrong with you," says, Vinod Dham, when asked why he left a high-profile career in Intel after having successfully completed the Pentium project. "In 1995, I was 45 and facing a midlife crisis. I could have ridden a Harley Davidson, or gone bungee jumping or done a startup. Since I am a pretty conservative guy I chose the last," he laughs.
From the hills near Rawalpindi to the Valley, the Dhams have gone through a fascinating journey. Coming to India during Partition as refugees, Dham's father joined the army as a civilian. Dham was born in Pune (across the railway station in Cowasji Hospital, says Dham) as his father was posted there. His early education was in Pune and Dham considers himself a Puneite, speaking fluent Marathi.
After his bachelors in Electrical Engineering from the Delhi College of Engineering, in 1971, Dham wanted to go abroad and study microelectronics. However, his parents wanted him to be with them in Delhi. Then started working in the only semiconductor startup that existed in India back then. There was some activity happening in a government-sponsored division in Bangalore, where they were doing some work in semiconductors with Bharat Electronics, but in private industry there was only one company, called Continental Devices India, which was collaborating with Teledyne Semiconductor in California. He joined them and helped them put together a facility in Delhi. He worked there for four years and his love for semiconductors started then. Dham wanted to know what went on inside the devices. And so, after convincing his parents, he went to Cincinnati in 1975 to do an MS EE in Solid State Sciences. Cincinnati, at that time, was a very good school in microelectronics with even a fab on campus and was widely supported by the semiconductor industry. After MS Dham went to Dayton and joined MCR.
He got some patents from the work he did there. He was presenting it in a IEEE conference in Monterrey, California. The Intel people were also there presenting their work and they said they wanted him to join them.
Vinod Dham and the Birth of the Pentium:
“While in Continental Devices I had read about Gordon Moore, Robert Noyce and all that in the technology magazines but they were asking questions like how PhDs would run a business. It was fascinating. Of course, I joined as a lowly engineer. I worked on EPROMS (I was a co-inventor of flash memory) for seven years," recalls Dham.
However, Dham wanted more action and started looking around. At that time, the 386 chip was designed and had gone for production. Dham wanted to get into microprocessors, he applied for a job in that division but he was rejected since the project was on course. That would not deter a determined Dham. He went nosing around and found that there were problems in production. The fab thought may be it was at fault and was cleaning up its shop, the designers were at tethers end after several redesigns and Dham thought he could lick the problem. He went to the programme manager and told him that he would act as his consultant and need not be given a formal position.
When Dham straightened out the problem, Intel's fortunes shot up and the boss was happy. So he made him in charge of 386 and went on to 486 himself. But 386 was now mature and there was not much excitement. It so turned out that he was then shifted to 486 since his former boss had quit. However 486 was in deep trouble, the fab was ready, the chip had been announced to go one up on competitors but there were numerous problems at all levels.
"I worked so hard I thought I died, but finally I finished the project in November 1989. I took a month off to India to unwind and came back in January 1990 and was made in charge of 586 or Pentium. Pentium was a challenge in many ways; 486 were more integration than innovation. Paranoia was absolutely at the top. "It was not easy at that time. The first six months was for laying foundation. We also started bringing multi-scalar architecture. I picked Avtar Saini to execute the design. He was a go-getter and executed very well. The whole team did a great job. The biggest challenges came in business. The big customers like IBM and Compaq were very happy selling 486. But we wanted to stay one generation ahead of competition. But, our customers were not ready. Luckily CD-ROM prices crashed and became affordable for home PCs. We had a bus called PCI and we could put graphics, audio and video as well as games on a home computer using Pentium, and then position ourselves ahead of 486. We picked ourselves a new horse called Packard Bell, which nobody in the corporate market had heard of. They started selling to CompUSA, Circuit City, Best Buy, Good Guy and all the retail stores. I used to go with my team to demos with 486 and Pentium to show how Pentium was better than 486. They were getting it only from Packard Bell and they asked Compaq and Dell: "Where is your Pentium machine?" Pentium became a huge success for Intel and Dham left Intel in 1995, riding on its success. ," Says Dham.
"The best thing that happened to me was joining Intel and the best thing that happened to me was leaving Intel," says Dham in one of his crisp sound bytes that make him so popular with journalists.
Life after he left intel:
He joined Nexgen, which was a startup that was acquired by AMD later. After helping AMD seriously challenge Intel with its vastly popular K6, Dham left AMD and joined Silicon Spice, a startup, as chairman, president and CEO though others had founded it. "It has been the best part of my life, building teams, products, raising money, talking to customers and finally selling it to Broadcom, a company which might become tomorrow's Cisco," he says. Silicon Spice has been acquired by Broadcom for $1.2 billion and everybody, including some office staff, have become millionaires.
Photographs and certificates from Andy Grove and Craig Barret about 386, 486 and Pentium adorn Dham's office walls as well as one from Bill Clinton for being the presidential advisor on minorities. Noticeably his latest chip, Calisto - its very first copy that passed all tests - lies at the feet of a small Ganapati statue on his table.
Dham's favourite hobby is carpentry and his favourite TV show is Home Improvement. 'Tool Man' Tim Taylor's Do It Yourself does not quite work. This hi-tech craftsman's chips sure do.
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2. AJAY BHATT.
*Co-Inventor of the USB.
*Intel Fellow, Chief Client Platform Architect
Intel Architecture Group.
Ajay V. Bhatt is an Indian-American computer architect. He has been instrumental in driving definition and development of broadly adopted technologies such as USB (Universal Serial Bus), AGP (Accelerated Graphics Port), PCI Express, Platform Power management architecture and various chipset enhancements.
Ajay Bhatt rose to global celebrity as the co-inventor of USB through an Intel 2009 TV advertisement, where actor Sunil Narkar portrayed him.
Biography:
After completing his graduation from the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India, Bhatt received his master's degree from The City University of New York, USA. Bhatt joined Intel corporation in 1990 as a senior staff architect on the chipset architecture team in Folsom. He holds ten U.S. patents with several in various stages of filing. In 1998, 2003 and 2004 Bhatt was nominated to take part in a Distinguished Lecture Series at leading universities in the United States and Asia. He received an Achievement in Excellence Award for his contribution in PCI Express specification development in 2002.
Bhatt is an industry-recognized expert in the area of I/O technologies. Bhatt leads definition and development of the next-generation Client Platform architecture at Intel. Bhatt continues to hold a position of Intel's Chief I/O architect, where he is responsible for the platform and I/O interconnects directions for Intel.
Intel Fellows are selected for their technical leadership and outstanding contributions to the company and the industry.
ROLE IN INTEL CORPORATION:
Ajay Bhatt is an Intel Fellow and Chief Client Platform Architect for the Intel Architecture Group at Intel Corporation. Bhatt leads definition and development of the next-generation Client Platform architecture. He is primarily focused on the novel advances in platform hardware and software by working with key internal and external technology partners to develop the future Client Platform Architectures and Technologies. As a lead Client Platform Architect, Ajay also works with key business and planning groups to be at the forefront of the future Client Platform innovation areas by setting Intel-wide and industry-impacting strategies.
In addition, Bhatt continues to hold a position of Intel's Chief I/O architect. In his role as a Chief I/O architect, he is responsible for the platform and I/O interconnects directions for Intel; leading the definition of next-generation platform architectures and I/O technologies across the market segments internally and within the industry.
Bhatt is an industry-recognized expert in the area of I/O technologies. At Intel, Bhatt has been instrumental in driving definition and development of broadly adopted technologies such as USB, Accelerated Graphics Port, PCI Express, Platform Power management architecture and various chipset enhancements. Bhatt joined Intel in 1990 as a senior staff architect on the chipset architecture team in Folsom.
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3. Narinder Singh Kapany :
*father of optical fiber
Narinder Singh Kapany is an Indian born American physicist and widely acknowledged as the father of optical fiber. He was named as one of the seven 'Unsung Heroes' by Fortune magazine in their ‘Businessmen of the Century’ issue (1999-11-22)
Beginning:
Narinder Singh was born in Moga, Punjab, India and educated in India and England, Kapany has lived in the United States for forty-five years. In 1952, this earlier work led Kapany to conduct studies that led to the invention of optical fiber. A graduate of Agra University in India, he completed advanced studies in optics, and Ph.D. degree at Imperial College London in 1955.
His career has spanned science, entrepreneurship and management, academia, publishing, lecturing, and farming. His personal interests include philanthropy, art collecting, and sculpting.
As a scientist, Kapany is acknowledged by many to be the father of fiber optics. His research and inventions have encompassed fiber-optics communications, lasers, biomedical instrumentation, solar energy and pollution monitoring. He has over one hundred patents, and was a member of the National Inventors Council. He has received many awards including 'The Excellence 2000 Award' from the USA Pan-Asian American Chamber of Commerce in 1998. He is a Fellow of numerous scientific societies including the British Royal Academy of Engineering, the Optical Society of America, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Kapany lives in the Bay Area with his wife, Satinder. His son, Rajinder, is a hi-tech executive; and his daughter, Kiren, is an attorney and filmmaker.
Businessman & entrepreneur:
Optical fibers:
As an entrepreneur and business executive, Kapany has specialized in the processes of innovation and the management of technology and technology transfer. In 1960, he founded Optics Technology Inc. and was Chairman of the Board, President, and Director of Research for twelve years. In 1967 the company went public with numerous corporate acquisitions and joint ventures in the United States and abroad. In 1973, Kapany founded Kaptron Inc. and was President and CEO until 1990 when he sold the company to AMP Incorporated. For the next nine years, Kapany was an AMP Fellow, heading the Entrepreneur & Technical Expert Program and serving as Chief Technologist for Global Communications Business. He recently founded K2 Optronics. He has also served on the boards of various companies.
As an academic, Kapany has taught and supervised research activity of postgraduate students. He was a Regents Professor at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB), and at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). He was also Director of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurial Development (CIED) at UCSC for seven years. At Stanford University, he was a Visiting Scholar in the Physics Department and Consulting Professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering.
Research SCHOLAR:
As an author and lecturer, Kapany has published over 100 scientific papers and four books on opto-electronics and entrepreneurship. He has lectured to various national and international scientific societies. His popular article on Fiber optics in Scientific American in 1960 established the new term (Fiber optics); the article constitutes a reference point for the subject even today. In November 1999, Fortune magazine published profiles of seven people who have greatly influenced life in the twentieth century but are unsung heroes. Kapany was one of them.
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4. Arun Netravali
*Bell Lab President - 1999-2001
Early life:
He received his undergraduate degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, India, and master's and doctorate degrees from Rice University in Houston, Texas, all in electrical engineering. He holds an honorary doctorate from the Ecole Polytechnique Federale in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Career:
Arun Netravali, the ninth president in Bell Labs' history, was also Lucent's chief technology officer and chief network architect during his tenure. Netravali, now Lucent's chief scientist, continues to work with the academic and investment communities to identify new technologies that will be relevant to Lucent's mission, and acts as an advisor to Lucent's senior management on technical and customer issues. Under Netravali's leadership, the speed with which Lucent moved its innovations from lab to market increased dramatically, as he fostered stronger partnerships between Bell Labs and Lucent's businesses, without sacrificing technical excellence.
Dr. Netravali is regarded as a pioneer in the field of digital technology and led the research and development of Bell Labs' high definition television (HDTV) effort. He has authored more than 170 technical papers and co-authored three books: Digital Picture Representation and Compression, (Plenum, 1987), Visual Communications Systems, (IEEE Press, 1989) and Digital Video: An Introduction to MPEG-2, (Chapman and Hall, 1996). He holds more than 70 patents in the areas of computer networks, human interfaces to machines, picture processing and digital television. In 2001, he also received from the Indian government the Padma Bhushan Award, the nation's third highest civilian honor.
Dr. Netravali is a member of Tau Beta Phi and Sigma Xi, a fellow of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and AAAS and a member of the United States National Academy of Engineering. For his scientific achievements, he has received numerous awards, including the Alexander Graham Bell Medal (1991) an EMMY for the HDTV Grand Alliance (1994), the Computers & Communications Prize, (1997) (NEC, Japan), the Frederik Philips Award from the IEEE (2000), the NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies in India) Medal (2000), and the Kilby Medal from the IEEE (2001).
Dr. Netravali was an adjunct professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and has taught graduate courses at City College (N.Y.), Columbia University and Rutgers University. He has served on the editorial board of the IEEE, and is currently an editor of several journals. He serves on the board of a number of organizations.
He holds more than 100 patents relating to computer networks, human interfaces to machines, picture processing, and digital television. He interacted with the students of his alma mater, IIT Bombay during Techfest 2007.
Awards and honors:
Netravali has received numerous awards and honorary degrees, including
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5.Amar Bose :
Born: Nov 2, 1929 at
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Residence: Framingham, MA, USA.
Alma mater: Massachusetts Institute
of Technology (MIT).
Occupation: Founder and Chairman of Bose Corporation.
Net Worth: US$900 million (2010)
Amar Gopal Bose (Bengali; born November 2, 1929) is an American electrical engineer, sound engineer and multi-millionaire entrepreneur. He is the founder and chairman of Bose Corporation.
In the year 2007 (Forbes 400), he was listed as 271st richest man in the world, with a net worth of $1.8 billion. In 2009, he had dropped off the billionaire list and although he is yet to make it back to the list, remains worth hundreds of millions.
Family and Education :
Bose was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to a Bengali Indian father and a white American mother. His father, Noni Gopal Bose, was an Indian freedom revolutionary, who having been imprisoned for his political activities, fled Calcutta in the 1920s in order to avoid further prosecution by the British colonial police.
Amar Bose first displayed his entrepreneurial skills and his interest in electronics at age thirteen, when, during the World War II years, he enlisted school friends as co-workers in a small home business repairing model trains and home radios, to supplement his family's income.
Bose enrolled at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduating with a B.S. in Electrical Engineering in the early 1950s. Bose spent a year in Eindhoven, Netherlands, in the research labs at NV Philips Electronics and a year in New Delhi, India, as a Fulbright research student where he met his future wife Prema (from whom he is now divorced). He completed his Ph.D. in electrical engineering from MIT, writing a thesis on non-linear systems.
Career :
Following graduation, Bose took a position at MIT as an Assistant Professor. He focused his research on acoustics, leading him to invent a stereo loudspeaker that would reproduce, in a domestic setting, the dominantly reflected sound field that characterizes the listening space of the audience in a concert hall.
Bose was awarded significant patents in two fields which, to this day, are important to the Bose Corporation. These patents were in the area of loud speaker design and non-linear, two-state modulated, Class-D, power processing.
To found his company in 1964, for initial capital, he turned to angel investors including his MIT thesis advisor and professor, Dr. Y. W. Lee.
During his early years as a professor, Bose bought a high-end stereo speaker system in 1956 and was reportedly underwhelmed by the performance of his purchase. This would eventually pave the way for his extensive speaker technology research, concentrating on key weaknesses in the high-end speaker systems available during Bose's time, and focusing on psychoacoustics, which would become a hallmark of the company's audio products. Applying similar psychoacoustic principles to headphone technology, Bose created the "Tri-Port Ear cup Drivers." Today, the Bose Corporation is a multifaceted entity with more than 12,000 employees, worldwide, that produces products for home, car, and professional audio, as well as conducts basic research in acoustics, automotive systems, and other fields.
Bose Corporation, as a privately held company, does not publish its financial records; however a few hundred shareholders to receive audited annual financial statements.
In addition to running his company, Bose remained a professor at MIT until 2000.
Bose says that his best ideas usually come to him in a flash. "These innovations are not the result of rational thought; it's an intuitive idea."
Honors and Awards :
Elected Fellow of IEEE, 1972 - For contributions to loudspeaker design, two-state amplifier-modulators, and nonlinear systems.
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