10/19/2024 – CASPA 2024 Annual Conference and Dinner Banquet

🎉 We are thrilled to announce that the 2024 CASPA Annual Conference and Dinner Banquet will be held on October 19, 2024, from 9:00 AM to 9:00 PM at the Santa Clara Convention Center.

🌟 This year’s theme is “DEMOCRATIZING AI: How The Semiconductor Industry Powers AI As A Universal Utility.” The event will feature a lineup of industry executives, leaders, and pioneers already confirmed, with more to be announced. Prepare to be surprised and inspired by the visionaries shaping the future of technology.

📅 Date: October 19, 2024
Time: 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM
Location: Santa Clara Convention Center (5001 Great America Pkwy, Santa Clara, CA)

Annual Conference: Elizabeth Theater from 9:00 AM to 4:30 PM

Dinner Banquet: Mission Ballroom from 4:30 PM to 9:00 PM

Don’t miss your chance to be part of this inspiring day! Register now on Eventbrite and secure your spot at one of the most anticipated tech events of the year.

Ticket:

Click this link to register for the event.

Agenda

Fireside Chat Guest

Charlie Kawwas

President, Semiconductor Solutions Group

Charlie Kawwas is President of the Semiconductor Solutions Group at Broadcom, responsible for the company’s 15 Semiconductor Divisions and the Brocade Storage Networking Division. In addition, Dr. Kawwas leads Global Operations and Intellectual Property for all Broadcom. Prior to this role, Dr. Kawwas served as Chief Operating Officer from December 2020 during which he drove the Global Operations, Sales and Corporate Marketing. He was also the Senior Vice President and Chief Sales Officer at Broadcom from May 2014. During his tenure at Broadcom, Dr. Kawwas oversaw the strategic growth of the hardware businesses from $4B to $30B+, driving strategic technology investments and operational excellence.

Dr. Kawwas joined the company through the LSI acquisition where he was head of Worldwide Sales. Previous positions at LSI include Vice President of Sales and Marketing for the networking division and Vice President of Marketing for the networking and storage products group. Before joining LSI, Dr. Kawwas held several senior management and engineering positions at Nortel.

Dr. Kawwas received a B.Eng. with Great Distinction in Computer Engineering as the highest graduating engineering student, an M.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering, and a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Concordia University, Montreal, Canada. Dr. Kawwas was awarded Alumnus of the Year for 2020 by Concordia University.

Annual Conference Afternoon Session Speakers

Richard Ho

Head of Hardware, OpenAI

Richard is Head of Hardware at OpenAI working to co-optimize ML models and the massive compute hardware they run on. Richard was one of the early engineers working on Google TPUs, the first large-scale deployed ML accelerator. He led multiple generations of TPU development fueling the use of AI in many of Google’s top products. Before Google, Richard was part of the D. E. Shaw Research team that built the Anton 1 and Anton 2 molecular dynamics simulation supercomputers, both of which won the Gordon Bell Prize. Richard started his career as co-founder and Chief Architect of 0-In Design Automation, a pioneer in formal verification tools for chip design which was acquired by Mentor Graphics/Siemens. Richard has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from Stanford University and M.Eng, B.Sc. from University of Manchester, UK.

Jason Cong

Professor, UCLA

JASON CONG is the Volgenau Chair for Engineering Excellence Professor at the UCLA Computer Science Department (and a former department chair), with joint appointment from the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. He is the director of Center for Domain-Specific Computing (CDSC) and the director of VLSI Architecture, Synthesis, and Technology (VAST) Laboratory. Dr. Cong’s research interests include novel architectures and compilation for customizable computing, synthesis of VLSI circuits and systems, and quantum computing. He has over 500 publications in these areas, including 18 best paper awards, and 4 papers in the FPGA and Reconfigurable Computing Hall of Fame. He and his former students co-founded AutoESL, which developed the most widely used high-level synthesis tool for FPGAs (renamed to Vivado HLS and Vitis HLS after Xilinx’s acquisition). He is member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of ACM, IEEE, and the National Academy of Inventors. He is recipient of the SIA University Research Award, the EDAA Achievement Award, and the IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal for “fundamental contributions to electronic design automation and FPGA design methods”.

Chloe Jian Ma
Vice President, China GTM, ARM

Chloe Jian Ma is VP of China Go-To-Market for the IOT and Embedded Line of Business at Arm. In this role, Chloe is responsible for strengthening and expanding Arm products, solutions and ecosystem for the China market so that the next wave of innovations in AIoT and embedded intelligence happen on the Arm platform. She joined Arm from the RISC-V world, where she worked for both SiFive and StarFive (SiFive’s China JV) and had her hands full with many aspects of the business from global technology partnership/ecosystem building, to GTM strategy, to fundraising and running a regional subsidiary.
Chloe’s experience in the semiconductor industry also included Mellanox and Intel, where she led the GTM of cloud networking and compute solutions into the hyperscale Internet and Cloud service provider segment. Prior to entering the semiconductor industry, Chloe assumed engineering and marketing leadership roles in the networking industry at Juniper Networks, Huawei and Cisco Systems. To close the full loop, her 1st job was with Wind River in real-time embedded OS with a vision to make everything smart! Chloe received an MBA degree from Wharton, an MSEE from University of Southern California, and a BS in Electronics from Peking University in China.

Alessandra Costa

Senior Vice President, Operations Synopsys

Alessandra Costa is senior vice president (SVP) of operations and a part of the executive leadership team at Synopsys. In this capacity, Costa oversees the company operations supporting the CEO and his staff.

Previously, Costa ran the company’s Global Customer Success organization, responsible for partnering with customers in their adoption and proliferation of Synopsys technology, products, and methodology.

Costa received her Ph.D. in microelectronics from Università degli Studi di Genova and has worked extensively in the semiconductor and EDA industries. She started her career as an assistant professor at Università degli Studi di Genova and was a consultant with the Agency for the Microelectronics Development in Italy.

Prior to joining Synopsys in 2021, Costa ran the North America field engineering organization at Cadence Design Systems.

As one of a few women in the engineering program at her university and the only female in her doctorate program, Costa is a firm believer in diversity and inclusion as critical enablers of innovation. She has championed the creation of Women in Engineering organizations throughout her career, including at Synopsys. She also introduced the concept of “returnship” at her current and previous employers, an initiative designed to ease the return to work for women who left the professional environment.

Annual Conference Afternoon Session Panelist

Keith Witek

Chief Operating Office, Tenstorrent

Keith Witek is currently the Chief Operating Officer of Tenstorrent leading operations, legal, HR, Finance, facilities, compliance, licensing, and other functions. Before joining Tenstorrent, Keith led all aspects of Strategic Alliances for Google’s consumer electronics operations that encompassed Pixel, gChips, Fitbit, Nest, AR/VR, wearables, and other product lines. Keith worked at SiFive as the SVP of Corporate Development and General Counsel structuring innovative industry partnerships and global business models for RISC-V adoption. Before joining SiFive, Keith was the Director of Technology Enablement and Associate. General Counsel at Tesla driving R&D technology development and deployment at Tesla, including the development of Tesla’s autopilot capabilities. Keith spent 13 years at AMD, culminating as the Corporate VP of Strategy and Corporate Development, where he was responsible for AMD Ventures, M&A, corporate strategy, corporate development, internal transformation projects, and strategic alliances. Before joining AMD, Keith was a co-managing attorney for the Technology Transactions. Group of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati located in Austin, Texas, focusing on start-ups and mergers and acquisitions. Before working for WSGR, Keith was counsel for various divisions of Motorola Inc. and counsel for Metrowerks post its acquisition by Motorola. Before pivoting to a legal career at Motorola, Keith was an etch engineer in Motorola’s MOS 11 fab, an SoC designer for embedded microcontrollers for companies like BMW and Seagate, and worked in Motorola’s Advanced Product R&D Lab (APRDL) researching advanced semiconductor processes and devices. In addition, Keith has a passion for entrepreneurship and sits on the board of Hyundai Mobis. Keith has been an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law, where he taught a strategic IP and technology licensing course, and has taught IP and M&A paralegal coursework at ACC. Keith has published several papers and spoken on various IP, business development, and contract-related topics worldwide. Keith is a co-author of an Internet and IP Law Treatise published by West Publishing, in which Keith has written several chapters on IP creation, IP management, IP licensing, and technology transactions. Keith is an inventor of over 30 issued US patents and several foreign patents. Keith holds a BS in both Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the University of Wisconsin Madison holds a Juris Doctorate from the University of Texas Austin.

Lucas Tsai

VP, TSMC NA

Lucas Tsai is Vice President of Emerging Business Management and Market Intelligence at TSMC North America. He is responsible for new sales funnels, including VC backed startups, emerging system accounts, and Value-Chain-Aggregators (VCA) in North America region. He is instrumental in the revival of TSMC corporate venture. Over his 20 years with TSMC, he specialized in bridging foundry and OEM by developing multiple-billion-dollar foundry businesses with a major mobile OEM and later with another major cloud service provider. Lucas holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from North Carolina State University, M.S. and B.S., Electronic Engineering from National Chiao-Tung University in Taiwan. Lucas was granted more than 20 US patents and has published more than 40 papers in technical journals and conferences.

Colley Hwang,

CEO, Digitimes

Colley Hwang is the President of DIGITIMES Inc, a prominent figure in the technology industry with extensive experience and expertise. His qualifications include serving as the Taiwan President of DIGITIMES Inc, holding a position as Director of the Yushan Technology Association, and working as an Adjunct Professor at National Chiao Tung University.

Mr. Hwang is a published author, with notable works including “Disconnected ICT Supply Chains – Now Power Plays Unfolding” and “Asian Edge, The East Wind, Strike, Westward and Long March, Computer Kingdom”.

His international research experience is vast, having delivered lectures across the globe including the USA, France, UK, Ireland, Belgium, India, Thailand, Japan, Canada, Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, Israel, Turkey, Philippines, and Armenia. He has been a speaker at prestigious events organized by the Asian Development Bank, GSA, SEMI, MAP Japan, PC Expo, Hannover Messe, Computex Taipei, and Oracle Open World.

Colley has led research projects commissioned by major technology companies such as Microsoft, TSMC, Panasonic, AUO, and Eisai, as well as the governments of India and Thailand. His hands-on experience includes visiting hundreds of electronic industry sites throughout the Asia Pacific region, solidifying his position as a leading authority in the field.

Xin Guo

Sr VP, Solidigm

Xin Guo is a Senior Vice President and Head of Data Center Engineering at Solidigm. Before Solidigm, Xin held various technical leadership positions at Intel for 18 years. During that time, Xin played a vital leadership role in every Intel/Solidigm Data Center SSD research and development project. Previously, Xin led NAND media-system architecture and product firmware development teams to successfully launch data center SSD products for every Intel NAND generation.

Earlier in his career, Xin was an engineer in various NAND Flash and NOR Flash engineering disciplines, spanning circuit design, technology development, and product engineering at AMD and Intel.

Xin holds 40 US patents in flash memory technology, circuit design, SSD system architecture, and NAND media management. He received his PhD in electrical engineering from Yale University and his Master’s and Bachelor of Science in electrical and electronics engineering from Tsinghua University.

Terry Thorn

VP, Ayar Labs

Terry Thorn is Vice President of Commercial Operations at Ayar Labs. He joined the company after 24 years at Intel Corporation where he held a variety of leadership positions in product line management, marketing, global cloud strategy, new business development and sales. Most recently, Terry was the GM of Global Accounts in the Cloud & Enterprise Sales Group with direct ownership of some of Intel’s largest customers. He has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA from the University of Alabama.

Wendy Wu

VP of Business Development, Expedera

AC panel moderator

Wendy is the VP of Business Development and Product at Expedera. With almost 20 years of engineering and business roles at Cadence, Cavium, Broadcom and NetLogic, Wendy is passionate about transforming innovative technologies into successful, market-ready products. Wendy has an EE from Peking University, a Masters in EE from the University of Virginia, and an MBA from Santa Clara University.

Annual Conference Morning Session

Co-founder and CEO, Silicon Catalyst

Daniel Armbrust is a Silicon Catalyst co-founder, member of the Board of Directors and its initial CEO.

Daniel serves as an advisor, board member, board chairman and angel investor for many semiconductor startups. Daniel is an affiliate with Lawrence Berkeley National Labs and recently was appointed to the Industrial Advisory Committee, which advises the Department of Commerce on the R&D strategy for the CHIPS Act. He served as President and CEO of the SEMATECH semiconductor consortium and held various positions in semiconductor manufacturing and development over 25 years at IBM.

Armbrust earned a bachelor’s degree in ceramic science and engineering from Pennsylvania State University as well as a master’s of science degree in manufacturing systems engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Steven Kim

CEO, Nota AI America

Steven Kim is Co-CEO of Nota America, where he and his teammates aim to build the world’s most effective and efficient pipeline—dubbed NetsPresso—to enable developers to build, optimize and deploy production-ready AI models on devices. He leads the product and strategy teams, covering global strategic partnerships and platform products. Steven focuses on defining the company’s innovation-based and customer-centric product vision so that developers do not have to make painful trade-offs among performance, power and cost during AI model development. Steven has more than two decades of experience in the semiconductor industry and has held a broad set of leadership positions from R & D to product management. Steven holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and dual master’s degrees in Nuclear Engineering and Materials Science from the University of Michigan.

Reza Azizian

Founder and CEO, Ferveret

Dr. Azizian is an entrepreneur, co-founder, and CEO of Ferveret, a company focused on developing liquid cooling technologies for AI and data centers. He pursued his postdoctoral research and completed part of his Ph.D. at MIT. With over a decade of experience in the electronic cooling industry, Dr. Azizian has made significant contributions to thermal management solutions. Before founding Ferveret, he engineered the thermal solution for Microsoft’s HoloLens, served as a Senior Packaging Thermal Engineer at NVIDIA, and was the lead thermal architect at Cruise. He has numerous publications in esteemed journals and holds many patents.

Wen Hsieh
Founding Managing Partner
HardTech investor, Founder/CEO thought-partner, and company builder

Prior to founding Matter Venture Partners, Wen Hsieh was one of three Managing Partners at Kleiner Perkins and KPCB China, where he focused on hardware-related investments – HardTech – such as enterprise infrastructure (data storage, networking, compute, security & access), AI, industrial/enterprise IoT, disruptive digital devices (wearables, mobile phones, consumer electronics), AR/VR, drones, robotics, autonomous vehicle tech, next-gen semiconductors, additive manufacturing, space tech, energy storage, and sustainability opportunities.

Before joining Kleiner Perkins, Wen was an Associate Principal at McKinsey & Company San Francisco and a leader of McKinsey’s Asia semiconductor practice. During his five years at McKinsey, Wen focused primarily on serving leading companies across the global semiconductor value chain. His secondary focus at McKinsey was on the North America biopharma sector. Earlier in his career, Wen founded OnChip Technologies, a startup developing MEMS microfluidic biochips. OnChip’s target market was high-sensitivity and high-throughput peptide separation and identification applications.

Wen earned a B.S. with honors, an M.S., and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering, plus a Ph.D. minor in biology, all from the California Institute of Technology.

Alex Chen

Founder and CEO, Nexa AI

Alex is the founder and CEO of Nexa AI, PhD from Stanford. He has published multiple papers and models related to efficient AI, including the Octopus series of models. One of these models ranked second among over 500K open-source models on Huggingface and was featured by Google IO. The Octopus model is reported to be 70X more energy-efficient and 35X faster than Llama 3-8B when performing AI agent tasks, with an accuracy rate surpassing GPT-4o. Nexa AI has already secured over $10 million in funding.

Erik Norden

CTO, Zyphra

Erik Norden is a seasoned technology leader with a passion for pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence and hardware acceleration. He is currently CTO of Zyphra and advisor of a robotics startup.
Erik’s career reads like a roadmap of advancements in AI and hardware:

• Apple: Spearheaded the invention of the Neural Engine, a dedicated hardware accelerator now found in every iPhone and Mac, revolutionizing on-device AI capabilities.
• Google Cloud: Played a key role in advancing the TPU (Tensor Processing Unit) architecture, specifically for serving retrieval-augmented large language models (LLMs), enabling powerful and efficient AI applications.
• NVIDIA: Instrumental in kickstarting computer vision acceleration efforts, leading to breakthroughs in NVIDIA’s Tegra and GPU product lines.
• Intel: Contributed to advancements in large-scale deep learning training acceleration.
• Infineon: Lead microarchitect for the TriCore 2 RISC CPU/DSP, a groundbreaking achievement that received the prestigious MPR Embedded Processor of the Year award.

Erik’s passion for innovation was evident even in his youth, culminating in him becoming a finalist in the Jugend forscht competition in Germany.

Allen Wu

Director of Corporate Development, Nvidia

Moderator

Allen Wu is the Director of Corporate Development at Nvidia, responsible for strategic acquisitions, investments and partnership. He previously was a technology investment banker at JP Morgan. Allen holds an MBA from Columbia University and a Bachelor degree from Stanford University.

Note: Tickets can be refunded 7 days before the event (Eventbrite ticketing fee cannot be refunded).

Free Parking: https://santaclaraconventioncenter.com/parking-and-directions

Please contact [email protected] for more information.