Gary Steele, Founder, CEO & Chairman of the Board

Gary has a degree in Electronics from the University of Southampton, which pioneered research into Optoelectronics & Fiberoptic communications in the UK. Following 10 years in the ASIC industry, Gary was co-founder & CEO of the UK's first Fabless chip Company, Acapella Ltd., in 1990. Acapella successfully introduced the use of mixed-signal CMOS into single-fiber communications links, and was sold to Semtech of the US.

In 1995 Gary co-founded and led Microcosm Communications Ltd., with a focus this time on mainstream dual-fiber links. Again pioneering the use of low-cost CMOS, Microcosm sold its 155Mbps, 622Mbps and 1.25Gbps chipsets to virtually every Fiberoptic Module OEM in the world. Following 2 Venture Capital rounds, in 1998 and 1999, the Company was sold to Conexant Systems Inc. of the US for approx. $200m, netting the original investors around a 20x return.

After 2 years of retirement Gary was eager to begin a new challenge, and co-founded Nanotech Semiconductor Ltd. in 2003 with several ex-Microcosm-ites.

Peter is primarily a self-taught circuit designer with a history of highly innovative circuit designs going back to the early 1980's. He spent most of his early career as a freelance analogue/mixed-signal consultant designing at both the system and component levels in such diverse fields as Ultrasonic, Passive & Active IR sensors, Flame detection, CMOS image sensors and CD/DVD read/write chipsets.

For the past 10 years, Peter has worked exclusively within the microelectronics industry as a consultant for an array of Semiconductor Companies including STM, Philips & Fujitsu and has an excellent track record for high-performance deep-submicron analogue/mixed-signal design.

Peter joined Nanotech in January, 2004 where early tasks included the design of the MOST Receiver IC and the growth & development of the Bracknell design centre. Following the success of the MOST Rx IC, Peter has headed key medium & high-speed Rx design programs in POF & GOF market sectors. He now heads R&D for advanced high speed but ultra low power Rx & Tx design programs.

David began his career with ST Microelectronics in 1986 as Sales Engineer and later joined LSI Logic as Key Account Manager. In 1998 David joined Philips Semiconductors as Global Key Account Manager, Alcatel and in 2000, he moved to San Jose, California to lead the Networking Sales & Marketing team and later the Business Development activity for Mobile & Personal Applications across the Americas. His next assignment was in Taipei, Taiwan as ODM Business Director. In this role, he successfully managed the engagement with the targeted ODMs that serve Philips Semiconductors' key OEMs in Communication and Consumer applications.

David graduated from INSA Lyon in France with an Engineering degree in Physics and Semiconductor Materials.

David joined Nanotech in October 2007.

Steve joined Plessey Research (Caswell) Ltd in the late '70s, initially working on ultra-low noise microelectronic devices and infrared systems. While at Caswell he developed specialisation in DSP systems, digital radio architectures, analog CMOS design and mixed-signal IC's for telecom, datacom, and satellite communication systems. In 1986 Steve joined Dialog Semiconductor/TEMIC where he continued his work on complex mixed-signal IC and EDA developments as Design Manager before gaining the position of VP Engineering for the company's worldwide operation. Early in 1996 Steve joined GEC Plessey Semiconductor as Director of Mixed-Signal Business overseeing 10 design centres worldwide. During the company's transition to Mitel and then Zarlink he moved across to the Medical Semiconductor division to build up teams in California and later back in the UK spearheading R&D activities for ultra-low power, complex RFAMS, CMOS SoC's for applications in medical telemetry and implanted systems.

Steve is a visiting Professor at the University of Westminster and has authored nearly 30 scientific papers and contributed to several books on IC design and data converters. He is a Fellow of the IEE.

Brian has 21 years experience in the semiconductor industry having worked for many of the industry's big names such as Texas Instruments, ST Microelectronics, Motorola and Conexant, after its acquisition of Microcosm Communications. He was also VP Operations at Phyworks for 2 years.

During these 21 years he has worked on TTL, Linear, Graphics, Transputer, Microcontroller and PMD products destined for consumer, datacomm, telecomm and automotive markets.

As employee number 6 at Microcosm he took the company into volume production implementing all the necessary mechanisms to move the company from design only into a supplier of quality high volume product. His responsibilities included supply chain management, test development, product engineering and Quality Assurance.

Once Microcosm was acquired by Conexant he was appointed Director of Test and Product Engineering for the ICON business unit where he was responsible for a team of more than 50 test and product engineers in both the UK and California working on integrated circuits for optical networks.

As VP Operations Brian's responsibilities include Product Evaluation, Product Engineering, Test Development, Supply Chain Management and Quality Assurance.

Brian joined Nanotech in July of 2004.