NACSA

Northern America Chinese Clean-tech & Semiconductor Association (NACSA) 2012 Annual Conference“Innovation: the Vital Role Plays in Economic Growth” is coming soon.  We are extremely excited to have a group of distinguished speakers to share their decade of experience and visions on how technological innovation can continue empowering future industry growth.  Please come and join us for this much anticipated event in Silicon Valley!

There is no doubt that innovation is the engine for long-term economic growth. However, what area of innovation will impact the economic recovery? In the coming decade, will the semiconductor industry continue leading the industry as the past several decades following the direction of ‘Moore’s law’?  NACSA 2012 Annual Conference will help answering these questions you might have in mind.  It is also a great opportunity to learn and interact with our distinguished speakers and fellow professionals.

Spaces are limited; please follow the links above to register.  There will be a reception and a prize drawing at the end of this conference to celebrate this great event and to extend our deepest appreciation for your continuous support.

Date:               May 19, 2012 (This Saturday!)

Time:              1:00PM-6:00PM

Admission:      Free. Seating is limited, RSVP is closed.  

Venue:            Club Regent, Fairmont Hotel
(click here for conference room and parking direction)

Address:         170 South Market Street, San Jose, CA 95113 (Google Map)

Click here for e-copy of Conference brochure  

For more information on NACSA and its activities, please refer to our website www.nacsa.com.

Annual Conference Program

1:00-1:20am          Registration & Networking

1:20-1:30am          Welcoming Speech
Cheng Peng, NACSA President

1:30-2:10pm          “The Capacitive Touch Revolution”
Norm Taffe, SVP, Consumer and Computation Division, Cypress Semiconductor

2:10-2:50pm          “Build the Sustainable Global Solar Industry”
Peng Fang, PhD., Chief Executive Officer, JA Solar

2:50-3:30pm          “The Next Frontiers in Computing”
Achintya K. Bhowmik, Ph.D., Director, Perceptual Computing, Intel Corporation

3:30-4:10pm          “Gesture Recognition – The Technology & Market Evolution”
Sinclair Vass, Sir. Dir. of Marketing & Business Operations, JDSU

4:10-4:50pm          “Semiconductors and Semi Ecosystems for Intelligent Systems”
 Mali Venkatesan, Ph.D., Research Manager, IDC

4:50-5:10pm          Concluding Remarks/ NACSA Annual Election of Board Directors

5:10-5:40pm          Reception

5:40-6:00pm          Announce BOD Election Result/ Prize Drawings

6:00pm                  Conference Adjourn

Speaker’s Biographies

Norm Taffe

Senior Vice President, Consumer and Computation Division, Cypress Semiconductor

Norm Taffe is Senior Vice President of the Consumer and Computation Division (CCD) at Cypress. The division designs and develops solutions for many of the world’s leading manufacturers of consumer and computation gear, including mobile phones, tablets, PCs, Digital Still Cameras, Printers, TVs, MP3 players and many other consumer electronics devices.  CCD product offerings include a broad line of user interface solutions for capacitive touch screens, capacitive buttons, and optical navigation and PCtrackpads.  The portfolio includes the market leading TrueTouch^® portfolio ofTouchscreen controllers along with associated software, firmware and sensor design solutions.

Since joining Cypress in 1989, Taffe has held numerous positions of increasing responsibility, including marketing director of the Programmable Logic and Interface Products Divisions, managing director of Cypress’s M&A and venture fund, managing director of the Wireless Business Unit and vice president of the Personal Communications Division.

 Peng Fang, Ph. D.

Chief Executive Officer, JA Solar

Dr. Fang Peng was appointed Chief Executive Officer in January 2010. Dr. Fang joins JA Solar with more than 20 years of executive management experience with leading global technology companies in the solar and semiconductor industries in both the U.S. and China.

Dr. Fang was president of Best Solar Co., Ltd., where he turned a start-up company into an internationally known solar module company in just 18 months. Dr. Fang was formerly president of Huahong NEC, one of the largest semiconductor foundries in China.

Dr. Fang has also held various technology and management positions at Applied Materials and AMD in the U.S. Dr. Fang received his Ph.D and MSEE degrees from the University of Minnesota. He was also a postdoctoral research fellow at the EECS Department of UC Berkeley.

Dr. Fang was chairman of the IEEE Electron Devices Society, Santa Clara Valley Chapter.

Achintya K. Bhowmik, Ph. D.

Director, Perceptual Computing, Intel Corporation

Dr. Achin Bhowmik is the director of perceptual computing at Intel Corporation, where his group is focused on developing next-generation computing solutions based on natural human-computer interaction and visual computing technologies and applications. He assumed this responsibility after serving as the chief of staff and technical assistant to the corporate vice president and general manager of the personal-computer group, Intel’s largest business unit with >$30B revenues in 2010.

Previously, he led the advanced video and display architecture team, responsible for developing power-performance optimized multimedia processing engines for Intel’s computing products.  His prior work includes development of high-definition display systems based on all-digital liquid-crystal-on-silicon microdisplay technology, electro-optic modulation in organic molecular crystals, and integrated optical and photonic circuits for high-speed communication networks. He has been an adjunct professor at the Kyung Hee University in Seoul, Korea, teaching graduate-level classes on digital image processing, optics and display technology. He has >100 publications, including a book titled “Mobile Displays: Technology & Applications” published by Wiley & Sons, and 24 issued patents. He is a winner of the SID Distinguished Paper award. He is a program committee member of SID and IMID, and a senior member of the IEEE. He is associate editor of the Journal of the Society for Information Display, and editor for special volumes on “Advances in OLED Displays” and “Interactive Displays”. He has been a session chair, invited and tutorial speaker at a number of international conferences. He is on the board of directors for OpenCV, the organization behind the open source computer vision library.

Sinclair Vass

Senior Director of Marketing & Business Operations, JDSU

Sinclair Vass, Senior Director of Marketing, is responsible for driving strategic marketing and marcom activities for the communications and commercial optical products group (CCOP) within JDSU .  Sinclair works closely with internal stakeholders as well as with industry experts, analysts and the financial community to define and drive CCOP strategy. He leads major initiatives in the optical communications, commercial lasers, solar and consumer markets. Sinclair previously held the position of Director of Sales for EMEA within JDSU.

Prior to JDSU, Sinclair directed sales activity for New Focus’s European division from 2000 to 2004.  In this position, he managed all business activities associated with the New Focus product lines, and was responsible for driving sales activities that exceeded revenue and market share targets for the company.  Sinclair also played a key role in supporting the successful integration of New Focus into Bookham Inc. after the acquisition in 2004.

Prior to his career at Lucent, Sinclair held various product marketing and manufacturing positions at UK-based Hewlett Packard Ltd. within the Fiber Optics Components division from 1994 – 1998.  He also served as a research engineer at Plessey Research (Caswell) from 1991 – 1994, with a focus on coherent optical communications.

Sinclair received an MBA from Open University in Milton Keynes, England, and has a BSc in Physics with Honors from the University of Edinburgh in Scotland.  He currently resides in California with his wife and two children, and speaks both French and German fluently.

Mali Venkatesan, Ph. D.

Research Manager, IDC

Dr. Mali Venkatesan manages IDC’s research practices for the Intelligent Systems ecosystem in the Automotive, Industrial, and Wireless Communications market segments.  He also develops, manages, and delivers IDC’s Semiconductor Vendor Market Share and Company View as well as its Semiconductor Applications Forecaster.  In addition, provides consulting services in semiconductor process technologies, mergers and acquisitions & IPOs, and strategic marketing.

Dr. Venkatesan is a semiconductor industry veteran with extensive experience in market research, market and technology assessment, business development, leading-edge semiconductor processes and technologies, emerging semiconductor applications, semiconductor devices, and semiconductor process equipment. His key strengths include international business development and driving strategic customer-focused programs. He also has a strong knowledge of semiconductor technology roadmaps for all key devices, including microprocessors, DRAM, NAND Flash, analog and mixed-signal, and SoC devices. Prior to joining IDC in 2010, Dr. Mali Venkatesan was with Applied Materials and Philips Consumer Electronics. Dr. Venkatesan holds an M.B.A. (Finance) from Santa Clara University and a Ph.D. (Chemical Engineering) from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).