Biography:Amos Wilnai

From HandWiki
Short description: American electrical engineer

Amos Wilnai (Hebrew: עמוס וילנאי) was born in 1939 and is an Israeli-American electrical engineer, hi-tech executive, entrepreneur, and philanthropist. He taught at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology (1973), and was part of the founding team and led chip design at both Intel Israel[1] (1974) and National Semiconductor Israel (1978).[2]

In 1982 he founded Clarity Ltd.[3] of Herzliya, Israel, and in 1997 founded MMC Networks of Sunnyvale, California.[4][5]

Career

Wilnai holds a B.Sc. degree in electrical Engineering from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology (1964), and an M.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn (1966).[6]

In 1970 he joined Monolithic Memories Inc. (MMI) of Sunnyvale, California where he designed and introduced a new MOS product line.[7][8]

In July 1967 Wilnai joined the R&D division of Signetics Corp. an early semiconductor company (then a Corning Glass’ subsidiary), where he studied bipolar and MOS processes and designed for Signetics’ a new MOS-based product line.[9]

In July 1974 Wilnai joined Intel’s Israeli Design Center in Haifa at its inception.[10]

In 1978 he moved to National Semiconductor to establish its newly formed chip design center in Herzliya.[11]

In 1982 Wilnai founded and was the CEO of Clarity Ltd. (initially named Softel) of Herzliya, Israel.[3][2]

MMC Networks

In 1992 Wilnai founded MMC Networks of Sunnyvale California and was its active Chairman and interim CEO.[11] The Company started as a bootstrap operation, received first round VC funding ($3.1M) in 1994, went public on NASDAQ in 1997,[12] and was acquired in 2000 by Applied Micro Circuits Corporation (AMCC) of San Diego, California for $4.5 Billion (a deal billed by the press as the second largest in semiconductor history).[5]

Charity

In 2006 Wilnai established with his wife Ruth the Amos and Ruth Wilnai Foundation, a non-profit charitable California organization that focuses on advancing underprivileged children and at-risk youth, and on social change.[13] Wilnai is currently President of the Amos & Ruth Wilnai Foundation.[13]

Publications

  • “Stratified Media Optic Cavitiesיי, (M.S. thesis), presented at the 1965 Winter Meeting of the America Physical Society, UCLA, December 20-22, 1965.
  • Open-Ended RC Line Model Predicts MOSFET IC Response, EDN/EEE, December 15, 1971.
  • Logic Driving Gates Double as D-A converter switches, Electronics, August 14, 1972.
  • Finding MOSFET Threshold with One Measurement, Electronics, September 11, 1972.
  • Eliminating Clock Waveform Imperfections in MOS Dynamic Circuits, Computer Design, September 1973
  • Design Consideration for Scanned Photodiode Arrays, Symposium on Microwaves, Antennas and Electron Devices, Tel Aviv, April 2-3, 1974 (with Prof. Yitzhak Kidron)

References

  1. Autler, Gerald H. (2000) (in en). Global Networks in High Technology: The Silicon Valley-Israel Connection. University of California, Berkeley. https://books.google.com/books?id=HZxNAQAAMAAJ&q=Amos+Wilnai. 
  2. 2.0 2.1 (in en) The Israel Economist. Kollek.. 1985. https://books.google.com/books?id=zbIeAQAAMAAJ&q=Amos+Wilnai+Elbit+. 
  3. 3.0 3.1 Electronics. 58. McGraw-Hill. 1985. pp. 52. https://www.google/books/edition/Electronics/JVpJAQAAIAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0&bsq=Amos%20Wilnai%20National%20Semiconductor&kptab=overview. 
  4. "HOW TO MAKE $400,000,000 IN JUST ONE MINUTE. May 27, 1996". https://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1996/05/27/212866/index.htm. 
  5. 5.0 5.1 "Israeli founder Amos Wilnai breaks record with $530m exit from MMC". TheMarker. https://www.themarker.com/misc/2000-08-28/ty-article/0000017f-def6-d3ff-a7ff-fff694440000. 
  6. "About". https://www.silicomventures.com/about.php. 
  7. "Electronics - World Radio History". https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Electronics/70s/72/Electronics-1972-09-11.pdf. 
  8. Circuits for electronics engineers. Samuel Weber. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1977. pp. 108. ISBN 0-07-019157-3. OCLC 2695050. https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/2695050. 
  9. (in en) EDN. Rogers Publishing Company. 1971. https://books.google.com/books?id=A2pJAQAAIAAJ&q=Amos+Wilnai. 
  10. גרדמן, שלמה (2020-07-01). "רק בת 46 ויש לה אלפי צאצאים – יום הולדת לאינטל ישראל!" (in he-IL). https://chiportal.co.il/%d7%a8%d7%a7-%d7%91%d7%aa-46-%d7%95%d7%99%d7%a9-%d7%9c%d7%94-%d7%90%d7%9c%d7%a4%d7%99-%d7%99%d7%9c%d7%93%d7%99%d7%9d-%d7%99%d7%95%d7%9d-%d7%94%d7%95%d7%9c%d7%93%d7%aa-%d7%9c%d7%90%d7%99/. 
  11. 11.0 11.1 "Amos Wilnai owns $520 mln worth of shares following MMC Networks-AMCC merger - Globes" (in en). 2000-09-04. https://en.globes.co.il/en/article--388841. 
  12. Solomon, Shoshanna. "Turning 71, Israel can look with pride at the tech firms it has generated" (in en-US). https://www.timesofisrael.com/turning-71-israel-can-look-with-pride-at-the-tech-firms-it-has-generated/. 
  13. 13.0 13.1 Petropoulos, Connie. "Amos and Ruth Wilnai Foundation" (in en-US). https://www.insidephilanthropy.com/grants-w/amos-and-ruth-wilnai-foundation.