SAN JOSE, CA -- 07/02/07 --
Altierre Corp., a provider of wireless
infrastructure solutions for retailers, today announced key additions to
its management team. Ravi Bhatnagar, a pioneer in silicon design with more
than 25 years of engineering and management experience, joined Altierre as
vice president of digital design. He will oversee the development of all
aspects of the digital design effort, and will be responsible for
development of new architectures for next generation products as well as
ensuring the testability of Altierre's new, highly-complex,
fully-integrated mixed signal chips. The company also announced the
promotion of Dr. Ken Cioffi to vice president of RF design.
A recognized innovator and leader in the semiconductor industry, Bhatnagar
has an impressive track record as engineer, manager and entrepreneur. In
the 1980s, during an eight-year stint as chief engineer and then vice
president/general manager at Chips & Technologies (later acquired by
Intel), Bhatnagar developed four generations of core-logic chipset and
graphics products that enabled and gave rise to the worldwide PC clone
market. As head of the new products division, he led a team of 150 that
designed the first clean room 486 class microprocessor. Bhatnagar
subsequently served as vice president of the Personal Systems Division at
Cirrus Logic, and later founded LinkUp, a smart phone and PDA applications
processor company, which he sold to Neomagic in 2001.
"Ravi will be a tremendous asset for us, not only in terms of his expertise
with complex silicon designs but also his leadership," said Altierre CEO
Sunit Saxena. "He knows what it takes to lead a diverse team toward meeting
ambitious goals and achieving success -- particularly in a startup
environment -- and our team is going to greatly benefit from his knowledge
and experience."
As vice president of RF design, Dr. Cioffi will oversee all aspects of the
RF and analog development, including both chip level and system
communications development. He will be responsible for advanced RF design
concepts for next generation products as well.
Cioffi has more than 20 years of wireless chip design experience, has
designed more than 40 RF chips and has several patents to his name. Prior
to his promotion, Cioffi served as Altierre's senior director of RF design,
where he led development of Altierre's groundbreaking low-power, long-range
RF technology. Before joining Altierre, he was vice president of RF design
at Discera, an RF MEM's chip company, where he led the development and
engineering of all of Discera's products. Previously he was senior director
of IC development at Tropian, which originated much of the initial cell
phone technology. He also served as CTO and vice president of R&D at
Glenayre Wireless, where he oversaw all aspects of development of digital,
analog and RF ICs including the first NPCS 900 MHz (2-way paging)
transceiver chipset.
"Ken's expertise in designing and delivering fully-integrated wireless
chips has been instrumental in the development of our industry-leading RF
effort," said Saxena. "With the addition of Ravi, and Ken's much-deserved
promotion, we feel we have a world class management team and are solidly
positioned to create exciting, revolutionary products."
Based in San Jose, CA, Altierre's proprietary hardware and software
platform is designed to solve critical problems for large retail chains.
Altierre's wireless solution features low-cost, long-range RFID technology
and back-end data-management capabilities that efficiently enable targeted
communications with customers and employees.
About Altierre
Altierre Corp., a leading provider of wireless infrastructure solutions for
retailers, provides single-platform hardware, software and other IT
solutions that efficiently enable chain-wide dynamic pricing and store
promotions, improved price accuracy, sharply reduced labor costs, and
improved communication with consumers from the onset of the shopping
experience to the point-of-purchase. Altierre is a 2007 Red Herring 100
Award winner, a selection of the Top 100 private companies based in North
America leading in innovation and technology. Founded in 2003, Altierre is
headquartered in San Jose, Calif. For more information, please visit
www.altierre.com.
Media Contact:
Jeff Fox
The Blueshirt Group (for Altierre)
415-828-8298
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