Nicholas E. Brathwaite, Chief Executive Officer
Nicholas E. Brathwaite is the Chief Executive Officer of Aptina. He is also a Founding Partner of Riverwood Capital LLC, a private equity firm in Palo Alto, California. Prior to his work at Aptina and Riverwood Capital, Nic was the CTO of Flextronics and spent 13 years managing and leading the development of several products before his retirement in 2007. During this time he also envisioned, founded and developed several successful businesses, including Flextronics’ cell phone ODM, camera module and power supply business units. Many of these have grown into significant businesses with revenues ranging from $200million to $2billion. Additionally, Nic has held various leadership and management roles at nChip where he oversaw wafer fabrication, module assembly and test and Intel Corporation holding various engineering management positions within Technology and Manufacturing.
Antonio Alvarez, Chief Operating Officer
Antonio (Tony) Alvarez is the Chief Operating Officer at Aptina. Tony is responsible for new product introduction, engineering, and manufacturing operations. Prior to joining Aptina, Tony served as Chief Operating Officer of Advanced Analogic Technologies, Chief Executive Officer of Leadis Technology, and Senior Vice-President of the Memory Products Division as well as R&D at Cypress Semiconductor. Tony led Cypress’ SRAM climb from No. 8 to No. 2 in worldwide market share, $600M at its peak. Prior to that, he led a team at Motorola that helped pioneer BiCMOS technology. Tony has over 20 publications and several patents in the area of semiconductor technology. He has Bachelor’s and Master of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and is currently a member of its Advisory Board. Tony also serves on the Board of ChipMOS Technologies.
Bob Gove, President / Chief Technology Officer
Bob Gove is Aptina's President and Chief Technology Officer. Bob previously led Micron Technology's imaging business unit, which produced CMOS image sensors for a wide range of applications. Prior to the formation of Micron's Imaging Group in 2001, he was general manager of Micron's NetCom San Jose Design Center, developing embedded DRAM technologies. Before he joined Micron, Bob served as Vice President of Engineering at Equator Technologies, and Vice President of Engineering at Compression Labs, Inc. He began his career at Texas Instruments, Inc., where he held various positions developing CCD, DSP, and DLP technologies and products. He has been working in semiconductors and related businesses since 1976. Bob earned a BSEE from the University of Washington, and he earned both an MS degree and a Ph.D. in electrical engineering/computer science from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas. He holds more than 100 U.S. patents and has been published in 45 technical journals.
Nathan Sarkisian, Chief Financial Officer
Nathan Sarkisian is the Chief Financial Officer of Aptina. In recent years, Nathan has been providing strategic financial management advice to various companies, including Spansion during their Chapter 11 Reorganization. Previously he was the Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for eleven years at Altera Corporation, a maker of programmable logic devices. During his tenure the company grew revenue from $100 million to $1.4 billion. Before Altera, Nathan held various positions in financial management at Schlumberger, LTD, and Fairchild Semiconductor. In total, Nathan has over 20 years of financial management experience in the semiconductor industry; he holds a Bachelors degree in Economics from Stanford University and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard University.
Jan du Preez, Vice President of Corporate Sales / Managing Director Aptina Singapore
Jan Du Preez has dual roles of Vice President of Corporate Sales for Aptina and Managing Director of Aptina Singapore. Prior to joining Aptina, Jan was the Vice President of Micron Technology's Mobile Memory Group from 2002 until 2006. Jan has also held executive positions with Infineon Technologies NA Corporation, where he served as President of Infineon in the U.S. from July 2000 through June 2002, and Vice President of Memory Products for Infineon in the U.S. from 1996 through 2000. Before joining Infineon, Jan held various management positions with Siemens AG in South Africa, Belgium, and Germany. He received a bachelor of business economics degree and a master's degree in business administration from Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Sandor Barna, Vice President and General Manager of Consumer Camera Business Unit
Sandor Barna is Aptina's Vice President and General Manager of the Consumer Camera Business Unit. Sandor is responsible for managing the business unit responsible for consumer camera applications (digital still cameras, digital video cameras and large-format consumer cameras). Sandor worked at Micron Technology for seven years, during which time his roles included Senior Director of Marketing, Director of Strategy and Planning, and Manager of the Mobile Design Team. Sandor joined Micron in November, 2001, with the acquisition of Photobit Corporation. At Photobit, he worked as a research scientist before moving into product design and management. Sandor earned a BS degree in physics from Yale University and an MS degree and PhD in physics, both from Princeton University. He has over 16 years of experience in CMOS imaging and related technologies, and holds more than 30 patents.
Farshid Sabet, Vice President and General Manager of Aptina's Mobile, PC Gaming Business Unit
Farshid Sabet is the Vice President and General Manager of Aptina's Mobile, PC Gaming Business Unit. Farshid is responsible for managing Aptina's business in the mobile arena (camera-enabled cell phone applications) along with all PC and Gaming image sensor applications. Farshid worked at SanDisk for over 18 years in a variety of engineering, management and executive management roles, including 10 years of senior level strategic management with mobile-focused business units. Prior to his work at SanDisk he worked at AMD in engineering. Farshid earned a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering at Purdue University and has a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering from Santa Clara University. He has been granted 21 patents and has 30 patents pending.
David Zimpfer, Vice President and General Manager, Automotive & Industrial Business Unit
David Zimpfer is the Vice President and General Manager of Aptina's Automotive & Industrial Business Unit. The Industrial segment of his business includes the surveillance, scanning, medical and machine vision markets. David has over 25 years of operations, sales and marketing experience in the semiconductor industry. David recently joined Aptina after 14 years at Cypress Semiconductor where he was, most recently, the Business Unit Director of the Automotive and Industrial Business Unit, he also held positions as Director of Segment Sales and Director of Strategic Account Marketing. Prior to that, he played strategic roles in marketing and sales at Raytheon Semiconductor and National / Fairchild Semiconductor. David earned both a BS and Masters Degree from the University of California, Berkeley.
Robert Schlossman, Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary
Robert Schlossman is the Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary of Aptina. Robert is responsible for worldwide legal matters including corporate governance, compliance, securities, intellectual property, licensing, litigation, and employment. Prior to Aptina, he served as the Senior Vice President, General Counsel and Secretary for Extreme Networks, Inc. where he oversaw worldwide legal matters. Prior to Extreme Networks, Robert served as Senior Vice president, General Counsel and Secretary for Network General Corporation, acquired by NetScout Systems, Inc. He also worked in senior level legal positions for Ciena Corporation and ONI Systems Corp. He began his legal career as a Law Clerk to the Hon. Eugene F. Lynch, U.S. District Court of the Northern District of California. Robert holds a B.A. and M.A. in English and American Literature from Stanford University and a J.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.
Jeff Mendiola, Vice President of Operations
Jeff Mendiola is Vice President of Operations and is responsible for all aspects of the company's global operational and manufacturing efforts. Prior to Aptina, Jeff worked for 25 years in several operational and manufacturing leadership roles at Micron Technology, including 15 years as fab manager. Jeff's work at Micron with finance, plant and system operations, along with semiconductor manufacturing processes provide a unique balance to his leadership in redefining and streamlining the Aptina's supply chain; quality assurance; procurement and facilities functions. Jeff earned an AS degree in electronics and holds seven patents.
Sammy Yi, Vice President of Assembly Operations and Advanced Packaging
Sammy Yi is the Vice President of Aptina's Assembly Operations and Advanced Packaging. Sammy is responsible for managing assembly operations, advanced packaging and corporation quality. Prior to Aptina, Sammy worked as president of the mechanical business unit and vice president of corporate technology group at Flextronics for over a decade. Additionally, Sammy has held various senior level management positions in engineering, operations and general management at electronics manufacturing companies in Silicon Valley. Sammy holds a Master of Science in Industrial Engineering from Wichita State University as well as a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering from University of Zagreb. He has also completed the PMD program at Harvard Business School.
Roger Panicacci, Vice President of Product Development
Roger Panicacci is the Vice President of Product Development for Aptina Imaging and is responsible for product design, product engineering, production test, qualification, and application of CMOS imager products. Roger has worked for Micron Technology for six years, joining the company in November, 2001, with the acquisition of Photobit Corp, where he was one of the five founders and held various design positions, including the CTO position. Prior to Photobit's founding, Roger was a member of the technical staff at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from 1994 to 1996 where he was responsible for designing a number of CMOS image sensors for space and commercial applications. He also worked at Eastman Kodak and Delco Systems Operations. He earned a BSEE from the University of California, Berkeley, and an MSEE from the University of California, Santa Barbara. He holds 12 patents in the field of CMOS image sensors and has published more than 10 papers.
Shung Chieh, Vice President of Technology Development
Shung Chieh is the Vice President of Technology Development at Aptina and is responsible for the development of underlying pixel, process (including color filter arrays), and camera systems technologies for Aptina. Shung was most recently the VP of Engineering at Fairchild Imaging where he oversaw sensor, camera, image processing development and application engineering. Prior to Fairchild Imaging, he held various technical and management roles with the CMOS imaging business in Agilent Technologies and later Avago Technologies. While at Agilent and Avago, he oversaw the development of CMOS sensors and test chips, SOC's, and pixel technology as Director of R&D. He also joined Micron Imaging (now Aptina) for a brief time through the Avago acquisition. Shung earned a BASc degree in Computer Engineering from the University of Waterloo and a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University. He also holds an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
Mike Lane, Vice President of Human Resources
Mike Lane is the Vice President of Human Resources and is responsible for overseeing all aspects of Aptina's global HR efforts. Prior to Aptina, he worked for Micron Technology in a variety of HR leadership roles, including managing and implementing the company's HR Business Partnering Program, domestic and international assignments, and was heavily involved in M&A activity. He has over 19 years of HR experience and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Business with a double major in Human Resources and Marketing from the University of Idaho.
