Ayar Labs announced on Jan. 11 that Ganesh Moorthy, president and CEO of Microchip Technology Inc., and Craig Barratt, former CEO of Atheros and current chair of the board of Intuitive Surgical, will join the company’s board of directors. Additionally, Ayar Labs announced that co-founder Vladimir Stojanovic has assumed the position of Chief Technology Officer (CTO).
The company recently showcased the industry’s first 4 terabit-per-second (Tbps) optical solution and recently demonstrated its in-package optical I/O solution integrated with Intel’s industry-leading Agilex® FPGA technology.
Ayar Labs CEO Mark Wade said in a press release, “Ganesh, Craig, and Vladimir are powerhouse additions to our team, and each will play a critical role as we move our technologies into production maturity. Their collective knowledge and experience will help us accelerate our roadmap leadership and deliver the transformative value of optical I/O in AI systems, high performance computing, and next-generation data center system architectures.”
Moorthy, who has more than 40 years of executive leadership and semiconductor industry experience, said in the same press release, “The work Ayar Labs is doing to make optical I/O a reality is essential to the forward progress of the entire industry. By addressing the performance and power bottlenecks of traditional electrical-based interconnects, Ayar Labs will help unleash the full potential of everything from AI and 6G networks to disaggregated data centers and so much more.”
In addition to his role as president and CEO of Microchip Technology, Moorthy previously held several senior leadership roles at Intel Corporation. He currently serves on the board of the Semiconductor Industry Association, the Global Semiconductor Alliance, Rogers Corporation, and Celanese.
Barratt, who has experience as a technology entrepreneur and board member, said in the release, “Optical I/O solves long-standing data movement challenges in computing systems. With the dramatic bandwidth and performance needs in AI systems, a new generation of foundational technologies and products is needed. Ayar Labs’ leadership in breakthrough optical I/O solutions enables system performance that is not possible with alternative approaches.”
At Atheros, Barratt completed a successful IPO, ultimately selling the company to Qualcomm for US$3.1B. He has also held executive positions at Google, Qualcomm, and Intel and currently serves as the chair of the board for Intuitive, IonQ, and Calysta.
Stojanovic, In addition to co-founding and serving as the chief architect of Ayar Labs, is the co-founder of NanoSemi. He served as an associate professor at MIT from 2005 to 2013 and, more recently, as professor of electrical engineering and computer sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. Stojanovic’s contributions to electronic-photonic design and system-on-chip integration have garnered him recognition as an IEEE Fellow.
