Nilesh Gharia
Founder & CTO
Biography
Nilesh has 20+ years of experience in the semiconductor industry with a diverse background in semiconductor design and product development. Nilesh was part of the startup team at NetLogic Microsystems which went IPO in 2004, and was later acquired by Broadcom in 2012 for $3.7B, which in turn was acquired by Avago in 2016 for $37B. He was also the 1st Engineer at Lanstar Semiconductor, which also went IPO. Nilesh worked in Virtual Silicon Technology, and was responsible for team development and product design. His expertise includes startups, emerging memories, memory compiler development, MRAM technologies, semiconductor IP development, network processors, and team/project management. Nilesh holds a Masters in Electrical Engineering from the New Jersey Institute of Technology and has a portfolio of 13 US issued patents.
Company Profile
Numem, headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, is the leading provider of advanced SOC Compute in Memory based on its patented NuRAM (MRAM) and SOC Subsystem IP Cores and Chiplets based on its patented, RISC-based, SmartMem technologies. Numem NuRAM provides an excellent SRAM and eFlash alternative for SoC Designers/ Architects with 2.5x smaller area and >20x lower leakage power than SRAM.
Numem provides an end-to-end solution that is disrupting the semiconductor industry by enabling ultra-low power, high-performance integration of persistent memory that can be down without losing data.
Numem’s IP Cores and Chiplets are used in IoT/Wearables, AI/Generative AI, Digital Security/Cameras, Autonomous Vehicle and Data Center applications. They enable Customers with a substantial reduction in system power and time to market.
Visit our website http://www.numem.com or contact us at sales@numem.com.
Dr. Cris Ugolini
Founder & CEO
Biography
Since grad school, Cris has been developing and commercializing III-N materials and devices. From all levels of business, he is an experienced and proven expert in innovating products for both large and small enterprises. Starting with the LED revolution at CREE, UVC LEDS and substrates at Nitride Solutions, and GaN-based power electronics at Kyma, Cris is a proven expert in developing and innovating most applications that III-N materials have to offer. He has two undergraduate degrees in math and physics from Bethany college, and a Ph.D in materials science at Kansas State University.
Company Profile
Alithia Power inc. (API) is a seed-stage company in the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina. Founded in January of 2023, API aims to be a high-volume manufacturer of vertical GaN power electronics for segments of the electrification market like electric vehicles, industrial motors, data rooms, renewable energy, and the SMART grid. Our products are branded as vertiGANTM.
Mahyar Khosravi, P.Eng
Chairman & CEO
Biography
As Chairman and CEO, Mahyar oversees strategy and execution, while facilitating relationships and partnerships for Nitride Global. Over the past 20 years, he has worked with several companies of various sizes on technology strategy and engineering processes, utilizing emerging technologies to create automation and efficiencies. Through these roles, Mahyar has had the opportunity to work with sector leading companies such as Shell, Exxon Mobil, Rio Tinto, Saudi Aramco, Keppel, FANUC, Daimler, and BMW, amongst many others. In addition to his role at Nitride, Mahyar also currently serves as an advisor and board member to a number of companies, including Pocket Pills, The Pyure Company, Garmentier, and Dianomix.
Company Profile
Nitride Global Inc. is an early growth-stage company that has commercialized high volume processes to produce nitride substrates and nitride coatings. NSI’s substrates are enabling UVC light-emitting devices and detectors, as well as piezoelectric devices and high-speed communications chips. Its thin aluminum oxynitride coatings on copper and aluminum provide high-voltage insulation together with a 80x reduction in thermal resistance for electronic packaging.
Dr. Aftab Farooqi
Founder & CEO
Biography
Aftab is the founder and CEO of ChipHub, an AI enabled semiconductor SaaS procurement platform for the hardware industry. ChipHub is Aftab’s second start-up. He was the founder and CEO of SiliconXpress, an IC design firm in 2008. Aftab began his career as an IC designer in the late 1980’s and has held a variety of both technical and commercial leadership roles including the last 12 years in semiconductor sourcing at Google and Amazon. He has a PhD in Electrical Engineering (VLSI design) from Texas Tech University.
Company Profile
ChipHub is an AI enabled semiconductor SaaS procurement platform for the hardware industry.The hardware industry requires a procurement platform that is truly hardware-centric—a system that not only respects the effort and skill behind great products and amplifies talent, but also models component costs, total cost of ownership (including both CAPEX and OPEX), and more, to suit the real day to day needs of industry. Most importantly, it requires a neutral platform that gives every stakeholder a seat at the table during crucial decision-making moments, from NPI through production to EOL. Designed from the ground up by AI, semiconductor, and hardware specialists to serve the entire ecosystem, ChipHub offers a better way to build the future.
Seena Partokia
Founder and CEO
Biography
Seena Partokia is the founder and CEO of Cenfire, a next-generation MEMS switch company spun out of Atomica. Cenfire recently closed its Seed round and is now raising a Series A to scale commercialization of its solid-state switching platform, which combines ultra-low power consumption, high reliability, and fast switching speeds for demanding applications across automotive, defense, aerospace, and energy storage.
A lifelong obsession with transistors and switches has defined Seena’s path. He began his career working on RF switches using Silicon-on-Sapphire (SOS) and Silicon-on-Insulator (SOI) technologies, where he gained a deep understanding of device physics and analog performance. He then transitioned into the power semiconductor space, working on high-voltage devices and system-level reliability challenges. That journey led him to Menlo Micro, a MEMS relay company that raised over $230 million, where he contributed to product development and commercialization of MEMS switching technologies.
Throughout his career, Seena has worked exclusively on switches — from RF to power to MEMS — building deep expertise in device design, process integration, and go-to-market strategy. With Cenfire, he’s bringing those experiences together to develop a scalable, robust switching platform designed to replace incumbent relays across industries where size, weight, speed, and reliability matter most.
Company Profile
Cenfire is unlocking a new era of MEMS switching with an all-silicon platform that leverages the same scalable, proven infrastructure that has powered the semiconductor industry for decades. Built entirely on standard silicon, the technology delivers high-voltage handling, low-loss operation, and fast switching performance comparable to electromechanical relays—without relying on esoteric material sets, exotic fabrication processes, or unscalable design philosophies. Rather than attempting to fabricate complex structures from rare materials, Cenfire uses the most abundant, cost-effective, and industrially mature material on Earth to address the toughest switching challenges in power and signal electronics.
The company’s MEMS relay platform is based on a modular unit cell architecture that can be arrayed in series or parallel to support a wide range of voltage and current requirements. This architecture enables precise, application-specific optimization—combining the speed and longevity of solid-state switches with the galvanic isolation and power-handling capabilities of mechanical relays. Cenfire’s silicon-based MEMS switches are orders of magnitude smaller and faster than traditional relays, with dramatically reduced power consumption and footprint—ideal for compact, high-performance systems.
From aerospace and defense to electric vehicles, renewable energy systems, and high-efficiency power converters, Cenfire delivers chip-scale switching performance to markets long limited by the size, speed, and inefficiencies of legacy relay technologies. Like every transformative hardware platform before it, this is the future of switching—built on silicon, again.
Martin Lim
VP MEMS Technology
Biography
Martin Lim is currently VP of MEMS Technology at xMEMS. His role is to develop a piezoMEMS platform to support microspeakers and to develop ultrasonic air pulse technology which is the foundation for the next generation audio devices and the fan-in-chip air pumps for microcooling. Prior to xMEMS he was a co-founder of InvenSense where he established the CMOS-MEMS wafer bonding platform for inertial devices with wafer production rates exceeding 5000 wafers/month cumulative across multiple CMOS-MEMS foundries. Previously, he held key roles at Systron Donner Inertial, Sitek, and Xerox PARC, leading process integration for gyroscopes, pressure sensors, and acoustic MEMS. With multiple patents and publications, Martin has been instrumental in advancing MEMS process technologies for consumer electronics, automotive, and industrial applications worldwide.
Company Profile
Founded in January 2018, xMEMS Labs is the “X” factor in silicon MEMS with the world’s most innovative piezoMEMS platform. It began by delivering the world’s first solid-state True MEMS speakers for wireless earbuds and other personal audio devices. xMEMS’ “Sound from Ultrasound” technology delivers high-fidelity and full-bandwidth sound in a 1-mm thin package for earbuds, smart glasses, and smart watches.
xMEMS has evolved its ultrasonic piezoMEMS platform to also produce the world’s first μCooling fan-on-a-chip delivering critical active thermal management to smartphones, SSDs, XR and even isolated areas of datacenter rack servers underserved by conventional cooling technologies.
xMEMS has over 200 granted patents worldwide for its technology. For more information, visit https://xmems.com.
xMEMS applies our novel and patented solid-state, silicon piezoMEMS process to 3 core markets today:1) Micro speakers for earbuds, headphones and hearing assistance devices. In this market, we are the only MEMS speaker provider in volume production with over 1 million units shipped in 2024.2) Sycamore loud speakers (“Sound from Ultrasound”) for near-field audio products such as smart glasses, smart watches and open-fit earbuds3) “Fan-on-a-chip” active micro cooling (µCooling) chip. It is the world’s smallest active cooling device delivering critical thermal management to small, thin systems such as smartphones, XR, SSD storage and datacenter subsystems that conventional fans and liquid cooling cannot reach.
Marcellino Gemelli
Business Development
Biography
Marcellino Gemelli received the ‘Laurea’ degree in Electronic Engineering at the University of Pavia, Italy while in the Italian Army and an MBA from MIP, the Milano (Italy) Polytechnic business school. He is currently based in Sunnyvale (CA) USA, responsible for business development of Bosch Sensortec’s MEMS product line. He is also an angel investor and advisor to tech startups. He previously held various engineering and product management positions at STMicroelectronics from 1995 to 2011 in the fields of MEMS, electronic design automation and data storage. He was contract professor for the Microelectronics course at the Milano (Italy) Polytechnic from 2000 to 2002.
Company Profile
Bosch Sensortec is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bosch Group, dedicated to developing and marketing a comprehensive portfolio of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based sensors and solutions for consumer electronics. Headquartered in Reutlingen, Germany, the company was founded in 2005 and has since become a global leader in MEMS sensor innovation. Bosch Sensortec’s product offerings include motion sensors, environmental sensors, smart sensors, and software solutions that power a wide range of devices such as smartphones, wearables, drones, and IoT applications.
By leveraging Bosch’s decades of experience and leadership in automotive MEMS sensor technology, Bosch Sensortec brings industrial-grade performance to the consumer market. With a focus on miniaturization, energy efficiency, and intelligent sensing, the company enables smart, connected devices that respond to their environments with precision and reliability. Through continuous innovation and a strong global network, Bosch Sensortec plays a pivotal role in advancing next-generation sensor technologies for an increasingly digital and mobile world.
Dr. Alissa M. Fitzgerald
Founder & CEO
Biography
Dr. Fitzgerald has over 30 years of engineering experience in MEMS design and fabrication. Prior to founding AMFitzgerald, Dr. Fitzgerald worked in engineering and management positions at several high-tech companies. She received bachelor’s and master’s degrees from MIT and a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Aeronautics and Astronautics. She co-authored MEMS Product Development: From Concept to Commercialization. In 2013, she was inducted into the MEMS Industry Group Hall of Fame and in 2024, she was Sensors Converge Executive of the Year. She is a board director for Rigetti Computing (Nasdaq:RGTI) and the IEEE Spectrum Editorial Advisory Board.
Company Profile
Dr. Mitchell Hsing
CEO
Biography
Mitchell Hsing is the Co-Founder and CEO of InchFab, a company pioneering a new MEMS manufacturing paradigm that delivers low-cost, fast-cycle-time fab solutions for sensors and actuators. As an innovator at heart, Mitchell’s aim is to lower the barriers of entry to microfabrication and enable more people to innovate on the microscale. Mitchell holds S.M. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from MIT and B.S. degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from the University of California, Irvine.
Company Profile
InchFab pioneered Application Specific Fabs for the new era of chips, delivering the world’s only drop-in, ready-to-use modular fabrication lines with as short as 6-month delivery lead times. These $1-10M agile fabs enable state-of-the-art wafer processing at a fraction of traditional $1B+ costs. The company provides complete solutions including turnkey process flows, comprehensive education courses, and foundry services. By combining low CapEx, scalable throughput, and a proprietary process library, InchFab democratizes semiconductor manufacturing for workforce development, rapid prototyping, and production across specialized chips, non-IC devices, and localized supply chains.RetryM
Application Specific Fabs
Eric Aguilar
Chief Executive Officer
Biography
An award-winning entrepreneur, Eric Aguilar is a visionary leader in the field of advanced sensor systems for complex systems, such as robotics and autonomous platforms.
Throughout his distinguished two-decade career, Eric’s passion for sensor design and innovation has made him a key player in the industry. His expertise includes leading teams at renowned companies such as Tesla, where he managed a crew of 300 engineers on the firmware for Model 3, and at X, where he spearheaded the development of Google Project Wing, an autonomous drone delivery service.
Eric’s expertise in sensor integration includes leadership positions at autonomous vehicle and robotics companies. His role in steering product development for a sensor company later acquired by Google — as well as for his pioneering work building sensors for drones at US Navy Research Labs — further showcases his depth of experience.
Eric earned a BS in Electrical Engineering from California State Polytechnic University and has pursued advanced studies in Electrical and Electronics Engineering at the University of Southern California. His work continues to shape the future of MEMS and sensor technology, making him a sought-after thought leader and speaker in the field.
Company Profile
Omnitron Sensors is rewriting the script on building high-performance low-cost sensors for the world of tomorrow. Leveraging its executive team’s extensive experience designing, fabricating, and using MEMS sensors, Omnitron has developed a “new topology for MEMS” that addresses some of the most pressing pain points in MEMS manufacturing.
Featuring the clever arrangement of silicon process steps and a new packaging method, Omnitron’s topology significantly improves performance to produce robust, rugged, reliable, repeatable, and low-cost MEMS sensors in high volumes by leveraging commercial MEMS foundries.
The company’s first proof point of its new topology for MEMS is a large, robust, low-cost, MEMS scanning mirror for long-range LiDAR.
Dr. Coralie Gallis
Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer
Biography
Coralie, a PhD in Materials Sciences from Paris University with an engineering degree in Physic- Chemistry, has over 25 years of experience in wearable sensing, medical and sports technology, semiconductors, and automotive industries. Previously in Silicon Valley and now in Las Vegas, Coralie has led business development and strategic partnerships in AI, biomedical tech, and wearable electronics. She is a co-founder and CTO of SM24, a wearable start-up, a non-invasive continuous biomarker monitoring system for metabolic health for the femtech, wellness and sport sector. Previous to the creation of the start-up, Coralie has been working in consumer technology industry within 2 different European semiconductors research centers dedicated to developing prototypes for industry partners. She has been a judge for the CES innovation awards the last 2 years. Since 2024, Coralie has also supported Vibra-Nova’s ultrasonic haptic technology expansion in the U.S.
Company Profile
SM24’s mission is to improve health and wellness while educating users in how to maintain good metabolic health and staying healthy.
SM24 is developing a wearable device, “patchable”, containing built-in multi sensors that monitor the level of glucose and, lactate within the sweat. These levels combined together with the activity will determine the metabolic usage of the person, whether that person consumes carb or fat to fuel.
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