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Product and Manufacturing Managers To Help Launch Miniaturized Low-Power Products
Campbell, CA, April 23, 2003
Discera, Inc., an innovative provider of low-power microcomponents for wireless applications, today announced it has expanded its business and technology team to help power the company’s push into the handset market. It also has opened a sales and marketing office in Campbell, California.
The creation of an experienced team will play a key role in moving Discera’s unique microcomponent technology into strategic accounts at major wireless semiconductor manufacturers and communications systems design houses.
“The wireless market is highly competitive but is driven by the need to cut cost, power consumption and size of components,” said Didier Lacroix, CEO, Discera. “We expect the combination of our cost-effective, low-power microcomponents with a first-rate business and engineering team to provide Discera with a significant business edge.”
Discera technology offers a means to replace traditional passive radio frequency (RF) components with microcomponents and integrated circuits that occupy a fraction of the space and consume a fraction of the power. As an example, a quartz crystal oscillator, typically a standard component measuring 2x3 millimeters, can be replaced by a very economical 1x1 millimeter micro-oscillator.
New senior management and technical staff include:
Ken Cioffi, Vice-President, Product Development
Jim MacDonald, Director, Manufacturing
Andrew Brown, Microwave Scientist
Ken Cioffi joins Discera from Movi7, where he was vice president of Hardware Engineering, focusing on multi-protocol wireless integrated circuit (IC) design. Prior to Movi7, Cioffi was responsible for IC development at Tropian Inc., where he oversaw integration of system-level ICs that integrated wireless, analog and digital signal processing functions for cellular transmitters including support for 2G and 3G standards. Before this Cioffi was chief technology officer and vice president of research at the Glenayre Wireless Access Group.
Jim MacDonald served most recently with Ericsson, where he was manager of the company’s Design Center in Richardson, Texas. He oversaw advanced packaging for multi-chip modules (MCM) with integrated antennas for Bluetooth and 802.11 applications. At Ericsson he also held positions including senior consulting engineer and technical manager, where he developed new antenna concepts, phone platform designs and high-volume MCM modules. MacDonald also held senior engineering positions at General Signal Corp., AEL Defense Corp. and TRW Inc.
Andrew Brown joins Discera from Picometrix, where he researched and developed optical receivers, telecommunications systems, and instrumentation. Prior to Picometrix he was president of his own product company, involved in the development of miniature tunable filters and ultra-compact phase shifters. He was a post-doctoral research fellow at the university of Michigan, where he received his Ph.D. for research in microwave and millimeter wave high-Q structures.
The new team members join CEO Didier Lacroix, Vice President of Finance Eric Jacobson and R&D Director Wan-Thai Hsu.
The company’s new sales and marketing offices are located at 51 East Campbell Avenue in Campbell, California. The research and development team is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
About Discera Corporation
Discera is a fabless analog semiconductor company focusing on tiny, high performance silicon resonators for the frequency and timing control markets. The company’s PureSilicon™ resonator technology is a fundamental building block that can be used in creating fully integrated, low cost, small form factor wireline and wireless products, such as oscillators, filters, and RF components. Unlike crystal based oscillators, Discera’s PureSilicon™ based CMOS oscillators can be integrated into other CMOS based circuits. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in San Jose, California, Discera is a privately held company with investments from Ardesta, Partech, 3i, and Qualcomm Ventures. More information is available at www.discera.com.
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