Contact Information: Media Contacts: Venkat Bahl Discera, Inc. 408-432-8600 x228 venkat@discera.com Emilie Harris Lois Paul & Partners 512-638-5321 emilie_harris@lpp.com
Discera's CTO, Wan-Thai Hsu, Wins Innovator of the Year EE Times ACE Award
EE Times Recognizes Leader in MEMS Timing Devices
| Source: Discera
SAN JOSE, CA -- (MARKET WIRE) -- April 9, 2007 -- Discera, a world leader in CMOS MEMS
oscillators, resonators, and provider of next-generation timing solutions,
today announced that its chief technology officer, Wan-Thai Hsu, was
honored with the EE Times Annual Creativity in Electronics (ACE) Award for
Innovator of the Year. Honors were presented at the EE Times ACE Awards
Gala on April 3, 2007, as part of the Embedded Systems Conference Silicon
Valley.
The award is given to an individual who brings leadership, creativity and
out-of-the-box thinking to a technology, a product or a business. Hsu was
named as one of five finalists earlier this year. Discera's MEMS-based
timing devices offer a scalable, flexible and cost-effective alternative to
quartz crystal and have the potential to dramatically change the
electronics marketplace.
"Wan-Thai Hsu embodies the spirit of the creators of technology that EE
Times tries to celebrate every week in its coverage of the industry," said
Brian Fuller, editor-in-chief, EE Times. "His work with his colleagues at
Discera on MEMS devices is enabling a new generation of system solutions
that weren't possible just a few years ago."
For years the concept of using MEMS as a replacement for quartz had been
theorized by academics but there were few who thought it would be possible
to overcome the challenges required for real world use. Beginning in 2001,
Hsu and his team moved the technology far beyond academic research,
focusing on solving real world problems (temperature compensation,
reliability and packaging). Under Hsu's technical vision and guidance,
Discera developed, qualified and began producing silicon MEMS devices for
timing applications in high volume.
"Congratulations to Wan-Thai for this much deserved recognition," said Tom
Willey, CEO, Discera. "The industry is realizing the silicon resonators for
frequency reference is real. Wan-Thai's innovation broke the ice for the
timing industry with next generations of resonators and paved the way to
the fully integrated systems."
The result of years of concentrated research and development, Discera's
MOS1 family of oscillators is poised to enable electronics companies to
overcome the challenges posed by quartz crystal technology, which is
pushing the limits of its scalability, costs and processing technology. The
promise of reduced costs and smaller product footprint offered by MEMS has,
until now, been offset by concerns about silicon resonators and
reliability. These concerns included frequency stability over temperature
cycling, aging, vibration operation and shock resistance. The MOS1
oscillator product family overcomes these concerns. The MOS1 family is
being used as a direct replacement of quartz crystal oscillators for timing
components in electronics devices. The product is offered by a worldwide
set of partners and distributors including Vectron and Abracon.
The EE Times ACE Awards were created to recognize the people, companies and
products that show leadership in the electronics industry, honoring those
who are leading the way and making positive contributions -- the real
innovators of technology. Finalists were evaluated by a prestigious panel
of judges, comprised of the leading voices of academia, industry and Wall
Street executives. For more information, visit http://www.eetimes.com/ace.
About Discera
Discera is a fabless analog semiconductor company that offers tiny, high
performance silicon resonators for the frequency and timing control
markets. These resonators act as the heartbeat or pulse for a variety of
devices from consumer products such as cameras and MP3 players to
specialized equipment for the military. The company's PureSilicon™
resonator technology is a fundamental building block that offers, according
to Semico Research, "a better mousetrap" for 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, Qualcomm Ventures, Horizon Ventures, and Scale
Ventures. More information is available at www.discera.com.
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